A joint climate and nature cure: A transformative change perspective

Graciela M Rusch,Jenni Nordén,Jesamine Bartlett,Hanno Sandvik,Håkon Stokland,Magni Olsen Kyrkjeeide,Ulrika Lein

doi:10.1007/s13280-021-01679-8

Abstract

Climate change has considerably dominated science-policy dialogue, public debate, and subsequently environmental policies since the three “Rio Conventions” were born. This has led to practically independent courses of action of climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation actions, neglecting potential conflicts among outcomes and with missed opportunities for synergistic measures. Transformative governance principles have been proposed to overcome these limitations. Using a transformative governance lens, we use the case of the Norwegian "Climate Cure 2030" for the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector to, first, illustrate the mechanisms that have led to the choice of climate mitigation measures; second, to analyze the potential consequences of these measures on biodiversity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and, third, to evaluate alternative measures with potential positive outcomes for biodiversity and GHG emissions/removals. We point to some mechanisms that could support the implementation of these positive actions.

Highlights

Climate change is widely recognized as a leading environmental concern, a key driver of biodiversity loss, and it poses major societal challenges, including threats to the
We focus on LULUCF because of the potentially high level of conflict of climate mitigation actions with nature conservation objectives (IPBES 2019)
The uncertainties and data quality biases described above have to a large degree influenced the relative importance attached to the different carbon stocks in nature, as well as which measures are eligible for managing and enhancing atmospheric carbon removals

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is widely recognized as a leading environmental concern, a key driver of biodiversity loss, and it poses major societal challenges, including threats to the. With the goal of enhancing atmospheric carbon removals (to compensate for emissions) by15–17 Mt CO2-e by the year 2020, forest fertilization was singled out as a promising climate mitigation action for the LULUCF sector in Norway.

Results

Conclusion