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Review
. 2020 Oct 23;3(4):448-461.
doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2020.09.011. Epub 2020 Sep 30.

Ensuring a Post-COVID Economic Agenda Tackles Global Biodiversity Loss

Pamela McElwee  1 , Esther Turnout  2 , Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline  3 , Jennifer Clapp  4 , Cindy Isenhour  5 , Tim Jackson  6 , Eszter Kelemen  7   8 , Daniel C Miller  9 , Graciela Rusch  10 , Joachim H Spangenberg  11 , Anthony Waldron  12 , Rupert J Baumgartner  13 , Brent Bleys  14 , Michael W Howard  15 , Eric Mungatana  16 , Hien Ngo  17 , Irene Ring  18 , Rui Santos  19
Affiliations
Review

Ensuring a Post-COVID Economic Agenda Tackles Global Biodiversity Loss

Pamela McElwee et al. One Earth. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused dramatic and unprecedented impacts on both global health and economies. Many governments are now proposing recovery packages to get back to normal, but the 2019 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Global Assessment indicated that business as usual has created widespread ecosystem degradation. Therefore, a post-COVID world needs to tackle the economic drivers that create ecological disruptions. In this perspective, we discuss a number of tools across a range of actors for both short-term stimulus measures and longer-term revamping of global, national, and local economies that take biodiversity into account. These include measures to shift away from activities that damage biodiversity and toward those supporting ecosystem resilience, including through incentives, regulations, fiscal policy, and employment programs. By treating the crisis as an opportunity to reset the global economy, we have a chance to reverse decades of biodiversity and ecosystem losses.

Keywords: COVID-19; biodiversity; climate; economic policy; sustainable economies; transformative change.

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Conflict of interest statement

P.M. is on the Advisory Board of One Earth. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Economic Drivers of Biodiversity Loss and Ecosystem Change The Global Assessment (GA) identified five main direct drivers of ecosystem change over the past 50 years (orange circles), leading to different aspects of nature decline (green circles). Economic pressures were identified as a key indirect driver in the GA, and important elements of changes in economic supply and demand that drive ecosystem loss are shown here (blue circles).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Post-COVID Economic Stimulus and Recovery Packages As of September 15, 2020, a number of governments have adopted or proposed economic recovery packages, including stimulus funding, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a limited number of countries have included climate or biodiversity measures in their packages, and a number have introduced measures that would have negative impacts (such as reducing environmental taxes or regulatory enforcement). Data on recovery proposals for selected countries can be found in a public dataset as noted in Resource Availability.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Actions to Reform the Global Economy to Reduce Impacts on Nature Both short- and long-term actions across multiple sectors and actors are needed to address global economic impacts on biodiversity.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Enabling Policy Change through Crises and Social Tipping Points Both “social tipping points” (in which small changes move across a threshold into a rapid non-linear transformation) and external crises (such as disasters) create new ways of envisioning and engaging in policy change. Empirical examples of policy change suggest that new agendas are set and policies diffused through several mechanisms within both government and the private sector.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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