Southeast Asia is fortunate to have been blessed with rich biological diversity. Had it not been for the region’s rich biodiversity and healthy ecosystem, the fight against climate change and its impacts would not have been possible.
At a recent webinar, Executive Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) said there is no denying that climate change and its severe impacts on the environment, to people’s lives and well-being are already being strongly felt in the region.
Co-organized by the ACB and the Philippines’s Climate Change Commissions the webinar, dubbed “Biodiversity and Building Resilience to the Impacts of Climate Change in Asean,” coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement.
Highlights and relevance
Supported by the Swedbio, a program of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the webinar sought to highlight the need to incorporate nature-based solutions as part of the approach in addressing climate change.
The discourse on nature-based solutions, as well as the ecosystem-based approach to climate-change adaptation, has been gaining more ground in light of the current ecological and health crises.
During the webinar, the panelists noted the discussion’s relevance as the global community is developing post-2020 biodiversity targets.
The upcoming 15th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place in 2021.
Far-reaching effect
“We can no longer keep this [climate change] to the backburner as this issue cuts across the present challenges that hound us today. The far-reaching consequences of climate change disrupt our daily lives and spank our development,” Lim said.
Lim, who advocates the mainstreaming of biodiversity, said Asean countries, most especially in the past few months, have experienced stronger and more disruptive typhoons that came one after the other, leaving people dead and destroying millions worth of property.
“Climate change is one of the main culprits that drive the loss of nature,” Lim said, recalling the recent climate-related disasters that hit several Asean member states.
“However, the main paradox here is that biodiversity and its ecosystem services underpin our principal solutions and efforts to tackle climate change and its impacts. Without healthy biodiversity, our fight against climate change would be an impossible feat,” she said.
Biodiversity-rich region
Lim said, fortunately, the Asean is one of the richest in terms of biological diversity.
“Occupying only 3 percent of the world’s total surface, yet it is home to almost 20 percent of the known animals and plant species in the planet,” she said.
Lim added that diverse ecosystems, such as forest and coral reefs, serve as buffers against stronger winds and weather disturbances.
“Sustainably managed mangroves and coastal areas help defend communities against storm surges. All these support livelihood, health and well-being, and build resilience of the people of the Asean,” she said.
Lim said the webinar is an excellent opportunity to exchange perspectives, insight and knowledge on ecosystem-based adaptation and biodiversity as nature-based solution to climate change.
Well-timed event
UK Ambassador to Asean Jon Lambe said the webinar is a well-timed event and equally crucial to the next year’s events—the 15th Conference of the Convention on Biodiversity and later in the UK, the 26th Conference of the Parties.
Lambe said the UK is “incredibly committed” to next year’s events and has created the Global Ocean Alliance, spearheading the call of 30 countries for greater ocean protection.
The Global Ocean Alliance is championing an international commitment for a minimum 30 percent of the global ocean to be protected through Marine Protected Areas by 2030.
Important region
Lambe said Asean is a particularly important region given its relatively small area in the planet.
“It is an incredibly vibrant and biodiversity-rich part of the world. Three of the most biodiversity-rich countries, and four of the world’s biodiversity hot spots are here,” he said.
Lambe underscored the need for government and leaders across the globe to work together to protect and conserve biodiversity, particularly in the Asean.
“There is a huge need for us to work together to protect the biodiversity and mitigate the impacts of climate change in this region,” he said.
Highly vulnerable
The Philippines remain highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, experiencing an average of 20 typhoons every year. It is also experiencing heavy rainfall that trigger geological hazards, such as floods and landslides.
Assistant Secretary for Climate Change Ricardo Calderon said the Philippines is already experiencing what experts have predicted to happen because of climate change.
“Five typhoons hit the country. Despite the well-managed protected areas with an average forest cover of 75 percent, there is still flooding, there is swelling of the rivers, which simply means that our natural ecosystem cannot anymore absorb this kind of extreme rainfall and typhoon events,” said Calderon, a forestry expert and concurrent Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) director.
The impact to the community, to the natural resources, including wildlife, is very severe and very difficult to recover, he added.
Rich biodiversity, healthy ecosystems
According to Calderon, Asean hosts 20 percent of the world’s biodiversity and possesses exceptionally healthy and beautiful ecosystems.
“We have 49 Asean heritage parks and five Unesco [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] World Heritage Sites all over the region. The region’s biodiversity serves as the most important gene pool of rare and endemic species,” he said.
As such, he said the Asean, including the Philippines, stands to lose these resources as they are constantly being threatened by climate change.
“Climate change has seriously impacted our biodiversity. Basically the collapse of this natural ecosystem threatens our sources of food, our sources of clean water, our clean air, including medicines, our defense against natural hazards, our natural defense mangroves forests and reefs,” Calderon said.
“Once they are damaged, they would practically put our lives in danger and that is what we have experienced in the last series of typhoons,” he said.
Catastrophic events
According to Calderon, the 1.5-degree global threshold set by leaders under the Paris Agreement, a point of no return as the world will be experiencing catastrophic weather and climate events, are already being felt as far as the Philippines is concerned.
“Are we doing the right thing as far as adaptation and mitigation that we are currently implementing? To both the government and the private sector, the [answer] is we should,” he said.
Calderon added: “We should be moving more than enough on the intervention on the mitigation that is currently ongoing. We need the investment coming from the private sector along this line.”
“Are we ready to declare a climate emergency? In my personal opinion, we are already in the middle of a climate emergency,” he pointed out.
Under immense pressure
Von Sok, head of Environment Division, assistant director of the Sustainable Development Directorate, Asean Socio-Cultural Community Department of the Asean Secretariat, said while the region is rich in biodiversity it is also under immense pressure and threat over land use, invasion of exotic species and of the increasingly devastating impact of climate change.
This underpins the need to look at the linkage between biodiversity and climate change, he said.
“Climate change becomes a significant driver of biodiversity loss by the end of the century,” he warned.
He added that such interconnection between biodiversity and climate change is reciprocal.
“Several interactions result in degradation. One adversely affects the other caused by the human-induced factor or stress factor,” he said.
In recognition of these linkages, the global community has focused on how to incorporate biodiversity protection to climate action and vise versa, he said.
“The discourse around the nature-based solution and ecosystem-based adaptation has subsequently emerged as a possible solution toward climate sustainability and one of the main focused area of upcoming future meetings,” he said.
Wrong way
Tristan Tyrrell, program officer of SwedBio at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said recent reports are showing that “trends are going in the wrong way when it comes to climate change,” as the gaps between commitments and action to achieve the Paris targets of reducing greenhouse-gases (GHG) emissions are widening.
“As devastating as the impacts of Covid-19 have been, some scenarios suggest that it will have a positive impact in terms of global GHG emissions,” Tyrrell said.
“We could use this opportunity as what has been called, ‘the great reset,’ to ramp up positive ecosystem-based actions in climate-change adaptation and mitigation,” he said.
Inclusive global economy
Dr. Isabelle de Lovinfosse, head of Southeast Asia Conference of the Parties to the 26th meeting of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of the British High Commission Strategy, mentioned that “as the world recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, we owe it to future generations to base our recovery on solid foundations.”
This includes “a greener, more resilient and inclusive global economy,” he said.
Appropriate and effective national policies and programs on climate actions are central to building resilience, he said.
In a recorded presentation, Dr. Nagulendran Kangayatkarasu, deputy secretary-general of Malaysia Ministry of Environment and Water, discussed how Malaysia has prioritized its Nationally Determined Contributions, and how the country is working toward them through supporting various adaptation measures.
In Indonesia, Krissusandi Gunui, executive director of Institut Dayakologi, shared that the knowledge and wisdom of indigenous peoples and local communities are significant in strengthening climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation.
Image credits: ACB