What will IPBES tell us that we don't know already?

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is the intergovernmental body which assesses the state of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services it provides to society, in response to requests from decision makers. The 6th session of IPBES is currently (17-24 March 2018) held in Medellin, Colombia, and will see the launch of 5 regional biodiversity assessment reports. This meeting is attended by 750 world experts and policy makers. So what can we expect to learn from these new reports that we didn't already know?

Not much I believe.

Nothing that will alter the main decisions we should have taken 30 years ago when it was clear to most that our way of life was not only unsustainable but also deregulating the climate of our planet (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, was created in 1988) and jeopardizing our future. A few years ago I would have written "the future of our children" but the situation is evolving so fast that I am convinced now I am writing about my future as well.

We have known for 30 years we need to deal urgently with inequality, demography, greenhouse gases and loss of land if we want to preserve our environment and the humanity it is sustaining.

1)     Redistribution of income and wealth: in 2015 the richest 1% of adults owned 50% of global assets while the last 50% of the world only owned 1% of global wealth. This situation is worsening and I don't see how any policy can be put in place to safeguard our world without affecting first the most vulnerable ones unless we have totalitarian regimes everywhere. The most traditional barriers against our greed are taxes and these would have to be very high to preserve the last crumbs we have left.

2)    Population growth is slowing down.... very slowly... eventually. Our planet sees nearly 80 million new people every year and we will move from the current 7.6 billion people to 11 billion in 2050 if nothing changes (optimists are pointing to 9.6 billion). This means we will have in 2050 around 50 people/km2 (discarding mountaneous areas, ice and lakes). This may not seem too much at first sight but as a global average and considering the amount of suitable land that will be left by then???

3)   We have been speaking a lot about reducing climate change impact (which is actually different from reducing climate change) and know that much can already be achieved by reducing electricity consumption (25 % contribution to greenhouse gases) and transportation (15% contribution to greenhouse gases ... and a big consumer of biofuels). Today, renewable electricity generation represents only around 10 % of the global electricity produced. Now let's see how popular I would become if I tried to force everyone to take public transport and authorise only 1 flight a year ...

4)    Meat production is still increasing and grazing areas occupy 26% of the earth's ice-free terrestrial surface while feed crop production consumes 1/3 of all arable land. Cattle is also an important producer of greenhouse gases, methane in particular. Let's see how welcomed I would be if I proposed a 500% tax on meat.

There are many other key points that need to be addressed urgently as well, like the reduction of food waste (1/3 is lost), the reduction of water consumption, the halting of overfishing (or fishing at all), ... etc. and none that will lead to popular decisions considering that everything is about "consume less" while our economic models are based on "more ... more and more...".

None of the above issues require rocket science really but only simple common sense. Still, we love procrastinating and hope that some magic science will solve our problems.

So what will IPBES tell us that we don't know already? That our house is burning? We have known this for 30 years and IPBES will give us only an HDR picture of how bad the situation is.

Not all efforts put into IPBES will be lost of course but I am tired of all these efforts put into science-based policy making when nobody has the guts to take the obvious countermeasures and further let everyone believe that all problems can be solved by science and technology. The barriers to our greed will not come from science but from a new humanity.

Grégoire Dubois

The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of my employer.