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  Yahoo News 16 Mar 07
G8 plus Five launch biodiversity initiative, debate climate gridlock
by Richard Ingham

 BBC 9 Mar 07
Biodiversity 'fundamental' to economics
 Sigmar Gabriel

Germany has put biodiversity, alongside climate change, at the top the agenda for its G8 presidency.

In this week's Green Room, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel says failure to address the loss of species will make the world a poorer place - both naturally and economically.

Some might ask why biodiversity should be an issue on the G8+5 agenda.

Well, there is a clear answer. The G8 nations, together with the five major emerging economies of China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, use almost three-quarters of the Earth's biocapacity - the capacity of the world's ecosystems to produce natural resources and to reduce harmful substances.

The loss of global biological diversity is advancing at an unprecedented pace. Up to 150 species are becoming extinct every day. As well as their uniqueness and beauty, their specific functions within ecosystems are also irrecoverably lost. The web of life that sustains our global society is getting weaker and weaker.

That is why Germany has chosen both biodiversity and climate change as top priorities for this year's environment ministers' G8+5 meeting.

'Dramatic decline'

The participating countries have the capabilities needed to move a step closer to solutions to these two fundamental issues, which are so vital to a sustainable global future.

Biological diversity constitutes the indispensable foundation for our lives and for global economic development. The production of natural resources in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, stable natural hydrological cycles, fertile soils, a balanced climate and numerous other vital ecosystem services can only be permanently secured through the protection and sustainable use of biological diversity.

The 'biodiversity treasure trove' provides the global economy with an invaluable and extensive potential for innovative products and processes

Two-thirds of these ecosystem services are already in decline, some dramatically.

We are gradually becoming aware of the fundamental importance of biological diversity for the global economy. For instance, the annual value of trade in oceanic fisheries is valued at $5.9bn (4.5bn euros; £3. 1bn) - a six-fold increase from 1976 levels.

However, catch rates are in continuous decline, and almost 75% of the world's fish stocks are already fished up to or beyond their sustainable limit. Without sound conservation and management measures, fisheries will quickly become depleted and a basic component of global food security will be lost.

The global value of plant-derived pharmaceutical products is more than $500bn (380bn euros; £260bn) in industrialised countries. Of the medicines currently available, 40-50% are derived from natural products. For oncology and anti-infective medicines, it amounts to 70-80%.

With every species we lose, we may be losing a remedy for global health problems.

'Treasure trove'

An estimated 40% of world trade is based on biological products or processes.

Biological diversity provides the world's population, particularly the poor, with foodstuffs, medicines, building materials, bioenergy and protection against natural disasters.

The "biodiversity treasure trove" provides the global economy with an invaluable and extensive potential for innovative products and processes that is still widely untapped.

But our globalised and steadily growing economy is using up this irreplaceable natural asset at a terrific speed. The rate of loss of species and habitats is proceeding relentlessly at up to 1,000 times the speed of natural processes.

Global biodiversity policy is therefore a fundamental component of global economic policy. We need a greening of globalisation. To achieve this we need a comprehensive mix of policies that includes regulatory measures, economic incentives and voluntary measures and integrates governments, the private sector and consumers.

We need to address some basic questions: How can we enhance trade in products which are produced sustainably - can we agree on a facilitated market access for such products in the global trade regime?

How can we control the trade in illegally harvested timber and in wildlife?

Can we bring companies, the stock markets and the credit sector to adopt effective codes of conduct and criteria for investment?

How can we support the certification of products to guide consumer decisions?

Can we create economic incentives - for instance through the transformation of subsidies?

How can we ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources?

Besides the crucial role of direct conservation policies such as protected area systems and sustainable production methods, mainstreaming biodiversity into all relevant sectors such as trade, development, financing and transport is essential.

We are also increasingly becoming aware of the close link between biodiversity and climate. Habitats like forests, bogs and coral reefs contain massive carbon reservoirs, which significantly contribute to regulating the global climate.

Equally, the climate has a direct influence on the state of biodiversity. Estimates predict the loss of up to 30% of species by 2050 if climate change continues at its current pace.

We therefore need integrated solutions to global environmental problems. If biofuels are produced on land obtained through deforestation, their use is ineffective for climate change mitigation and has substantial negative effects on biodiversity.

Clear signals

We need to support certification of biofuels to secure sustainable production - an issue which will be addressed during the German G8 presidency.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg in 2002, the heads of state and government agreed to significantly reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.

With time against us, the G8 nations are under a particular obligation.

With their production and consumption patterns, they are accountable for a vast majority of pressures and threats. They are also the countries with the greatest economic power and as the largest consumers of biological resources in terms of per capita consumption.

During next week's meeting of environment ministers in Potsdam (15-17 March) we will discuss ways and means to enhance global biodiversity policies.

The aim of the meeting is to agree on common initiatives and to find concrete areas of enhanced co -operation in order to meet the 2010 target. This meeting will send a clear signal to June's G8 summit of heads of state and government on the crucial importance of biodiversity for the global economy and the need to integrate biodiversity into all relevant policy sectors.

Sigmar Gabriel is the German Federal Environment Minister and will head next week's G8 environment ministers' meeting in Potsdam

The Green Room is a series of opinion pieces on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website A series of thought-provoking environmental opinion pieces.

Yahoo News 16 Mar 07
G8 plus Five launch biodiversity initiative, debate climate gridlock
by Richard Ingham

POTSDAM, Germany (AFP) - Environment ministers from 13 major nations agreed here on Friday to seek the economic value of biodiversity to help preserve Earth's depleted storeroom of life.

The meeting at the Cecilienhof chateau, where the 1945 Potsdam agreement that reshaped Europe was hammered out, gathered together the Group of Eight industrialised countries and the big five of the developing world -- Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

Inspired by last year's Stern Report, a shock report on the economic cost of climate change, the 13 ministers called for a similar study on the value of biodiversity.

They also explored avenues for resolving the global warming crisis.

"In a global study, we will initiate the process of analysing the global economic benefit of biological diversity, the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the failure to take protective measures versus the costs of effective conservation," the so-called Potsdam Initiative said.

The idea will be put to the G8 summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm from June 6-8 for its endorsement.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, chairing the two-day meeting, told reporters biodiversity "is not just an issue for birdwatchers." It was treated as "a poor relation," granted only rare and fleeting attention by politicians or economists, he said.

As many as 150 species become extinct each day, or a thousand times faster than natural processes, yet there was lamentably little knowledge about what these species did and whether they could be of value, he said.

Biological diversity was not just the key to food supplies, through soil fertility and healthy fisheries, it also amounted to a goldmine for the pharmaceutical industry, said Gabriel.

Separately, the ministers swapped some ideas about how to tackle global warming, an issue that remains mired in problems. The 13 countries account for more than two-thirds of the world's carbon emissions, the invisible gases that trap heat from the Sun and threaten havoc with the planet's delicate climate system.

"There has been no negotiations," stressed Gabriel, saying the goal was to find common ground ahead of the Heiligendamm summit.

Breaching a low-key security ring, Greenpeace activists aboard a sailing vessel and five Zodiac dinghies sailed up the Havel river next to the chateau, and unfurled banners demanding urgent action against global warming by the G8. Protestors briefly heckled ministers at a photo opportunity at the nearby chateau of Sans Souci, describing the G8 as "false friends of the climate" system.

Earth's surface temperatures have been steadily rising for the last few decades, driven by the release of billions of tonnes of carbon gases from burning fossil fuels.

The only worldwide pact for reducing these dangerous emissions is the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012 but will deliver a cut of only a few percentage points compared with 1990.

That reduction will apply only to industrialised countries, not big developing ones, which do not have binding, targeted pledges under the present format and are now becoming hefty polluters in their own right.

Worse, Kyoto has been virtually crippled by a walkout by the United States, which alone accounts for nearly a quarter of world pollution.

Negotiations are under way for Kyoto's post-2012 format, but the big challenge is to coax an agreement from Washington and tough commitments from big developing countries, which all fear the economic burden of switching to cleaner, more fuel-efficient technology.

At a summit last week, the 27-nation European Union pledged to cut its own greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and deepen it to 30 percent if "international partners" follow suit.

Meanwhile, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported on Thursday that the Earth had its warmest December-February period since records began 128 years ago.

A record warm January worldwide pushed average temperatures in December-February to 0.72 C (1.3 F) above normal for the 20th century. In January, the UN'S Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pointed to the loss of alpine glaciers and snow cover, retreating permafrost and shifting rainfall patterns as signs that global warming had started to interfere with the climate.

By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 C (1.98 and 11.52 F ).
links

It's not just about climate
Ahmed Djoghlaf BBC 2 Mar 07

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