• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas September 21, 2023
Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote September 20, 2023
Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds September 20, 2023
Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP September 20, 2023
‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak September 19, 2023
Next
Prev

Insurer Warns of Ecosystem Collapse in One-Fifth of Countries, Imperiling $42 Trillion in Global GDP

October 15, 2020
Reading time: 3 minutes

Pexels/Pixabay

Pexels/Pixabay

73
SHARES
 

A new report from insurance giant Swiss Re Group warns that more than half of global GDP—totalling US$42 trillion—is in peril, as climate change brings biodiversity to a tipping point and puts 20% of the world’s countries at risk of ecosystem collapse.

In a global first, Swiss Re’s Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES) Index has released data on 10 key planetary “services,” including food and water security and quality, habitat integrity, health of pollinators, soil health, and erosion control, reports The Guardian. The report cross-references that information—which was collected from across the globe at a resolution of one square kilometre—with data on how the state of these services affects priority economic sectors like manufacturing, trade, and real estate.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

“Those countries with more than 30% of their area found to have fragile ecosystems were deemed to be at risk of those ecosystems collapsing,” explains The Guardian. “Just one in seven countries had intact ecosystems covering more than 30% of their country area.”

While developing countries that combined fragile ecosystems with large agricultural sectors, like Nigeria and Pakistan, rank high on Swiss Re’s risk index, so too do water-poor countries like Australia, Israel, and South Africa.

Also deemed high-risk are countries like Brazil and Indonesia which, notwithstanding the swaths of intact ecosystems still (relatively) secure within their borders, are still vulnerable due to their resource-based economies. That dependence makes the protection of remaining wilderness imperative, said the report.

Swiss Re created the index to help its fellow insurers assess ecosystem risks for businesses, but it also “allows businesses and governments to factor biodiversity and ecosystems into their economic decision-making,” said Jeffrey Bohn, the company’s chief research officer.

Flagging insufficient data a reason for a whopping 75% of global assets to remain uninsured, Bohn stressed the value of the index in helping to quantify “risks such as crop losses and flooding.”

While putting a name to the rapidly-accelerating biodiversity crisis is “half the solution,” there is an urgent need for concerted action at all levels of human life, stressed Alexander Pfaff, a professor of public policy, economics, and environment at Duke University. “Societies, from local to global, can do much better when we not only acknowledge the importance of contributions from nature, as this index is doing‚ but also take that into account in our actions, private and public,” he said.

Along with the data in its BES index, Swiss Re identified necessary solutions, including economic diversification, conservation, and habitat protection for developing countries with large agricultural sectors, like Pakistan and Nigeria. Reviving Louisiana’s coastal habitats “could reduce expected flood costs by $5.3 billion annually,” while restoring the world’s coral reefs “could lower estimated flood damages for 100-year storm events that would otherwise increase by 91% across the globe.”

But the insurance giant also warned that no amount of diversification will buffer the world’s economies against things like water scarcity or loss of pollinators.

The Guardian notes that, not long before Swiss Re released its index, 64 world leaders, including New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, the UK’s Boris Johnson, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, and Canada’s Justin Trudeau pledged to make wildlife protection and climate central to their pandemic recovery plans as part of the run-up to a United Nations global meeting on biodiversity. However, in a report prepared for that meeting, the UN revealed that “the world’s governments failed to meet a single target to stem biodiversity losses in the last decade,” The Guardian writes.



in Biodiversity & Habitat, Climate & Society, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Community Climate Finance, COP Conferences, Food Security & Agriculture, Insurance & Liability, International, International Agencies & Studies, Jurisdictions, Water

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

UN Climate Change/flickr
COP Conferences

BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas

September 21, 2023
203
Jon Sullivan/flickr
Ontario

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
517
Rewat Wannasuk/Pexels
Heat & Power

Virtual Power Plants Could Cut Peak Demand 20%, Save U.S. Grid $10B Per Year

September 20, 2023
66

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

UN Climate Change/flickr

BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas

September 21, 2023
203
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
517
Asurnipal/wikimedia commons

Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP

September 20, 2023
108
Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
81
Mr Renewables/Wikipedia

Californians Fight for New Community Solar Plan

September 20, 2023
80
Kristoferb/Wikimedia Commons

Canadians Could Save $10.4B, Cut Climate Pollution by Replacing Central Air with Heat Pumps

August 28, 2023
669

Recent Posts

Rewat Wannasuk/Pexels

Virtual Power Plants Could Cut Peak Demand 20%, Save U.S. Grid $10B Per Year

September 20, 2023
66
Jeremy Bezanger/Unsplash

Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds

September 20, 2023
32
Wesley Fryer/flickr

Smart Thermostats Boost Grid Stability Amid Intense Heat

September 20, 2023
31
Plug'n Drive/Wikimedia Commons

Rural Carshares Ensure EV Push Leaves No One Behind

September 20, 2023
24
/Piqusels

‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak

September 19, 2023
405
Clean Creatives

‘Turning Point’ for PR Industry as Clean Creatives Targets Fossil Industry Contracts

September 19, 2023
256
Next Post

World makes haste too slowly on cutting energy use

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}