毫无疑问！我们需要生物多样性保护和应对气候变化相协同
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作者：Alice C. Hughes 中国科学院西双版纳热带植物园景观生态学组首席研究员兼综合保护中心副教授、中国生物多样性保护与绿色发展基金会副秘书长
2021年被称为生物多样性的超级年——年内的会议都将对地球的未来有全球性和持久性的重要意义。在昆明召开的《生物多样性公约》第十五次缔约方大会（CBD COP15）将制定2020年后全球生物多样性框架(GBF)。该框架旨在扭转“全球生物多样性丧失曲线”，但要做到这一点，首先必须理解GBF的前身——《爱知目标》未能被实现的原因。
从过去的《爱知目标》，
我们应该学到什么？
《爱知目标》试图通过设定一整套的2010-2020年“生物多样性十年”的目标来遏制全球生物多样性丧失。然而，尽管这些目标雄心勃勃，但其中有许多是无法衡量、且没有包括可供有效执行的必要步骤，等同于设定了目标，但却没有规划实现它的途径。虽然《爱知目标》没有一个国家全部完成，但搞清楚这些目标未能如愿达成的原因，对GBF获得成功，至关重要。
总体来讲，《爱知目标》未能有效完成的原因有三。第一：承诺。《爱知目标》并非由高级政治人物进行谈判而达成的，因此各国的执行意愿差别也很大。第二：实践。由于很少有国家立法支撑目标的实现，这也给践行目标造成了不便。此外，由于许多目标的设定没有结合全球层面的生物多样性丧失现状，如森林砍伐发生的原因，这也导致这些目标看似“平等”，但忽视了生物多样性分布不均匀这一事实，且恰恰是发展中国家的生物多样性占了全球总量的大多数。要知道，发展中国家为发达国家生产商品，这是一个持久的生产供应链，也是导致地球上生物多样性丰富地区栖息地丧失的重要原因。解决这些问题需要有保障《爱知目标》实现的配套机制，以确保供应链和商品可持续生产，各国对其进口足迹负责。因此，在GBF中，必须体现“共同但有差异的责任”，各国对目标的实践需要将其国内生物多样性水平和经济发展的压力纳入考量。第三：无法衡量。目前来看，《爱知目标》缺乏指标性事件来衡量执行情况是否成功，也没办法保障执行过程中的全程监测，这也是目标难以实现的主要原因。为了改变上述情况，GBF应设定SMART目标（具体的、雄心勃勃的、可衡量的、现实的、有时限的），以确保这些目标既能改变生物多样性丧失的驱动因素，又可以衡量与实现。
另一个比较严峻的现实是，由于很多发展中国家对制定国家生物多样性战略行动计划都缺乏资金支持，导致其中许多计划起草得较晚或从未完成，这也使得几乎没有哪个国家的《爱知目标》取得了完全的成功。因此，通过资金、技术支持和能力建设等方式对发展中国家进行帮助，对其制定有效且有意义的生物多样性基线至关重要。比如新成立的昆明生物多样性基金，对帮助发展中国家制定、衡量和实现新的GBF目标，可以发挥重要作用。
不要低估GBF目标的重要性。我们吃的食物、穿的衣服和喝的水，都依赖于生物多样性。此外，环境管理不善会产生难以预期的后果。从原生栖息地的破坏而造成的局部山体滑坡，到因生存空间受挤压而使得野生动物与家畜、人类之间增加新的接触，以及由此所带来的人畜共患病爆发的风险——生物多样性不是一个可选因素，它是我们的生命支撑机制，确保人类有一个健康的环境对我们自己和后代的福祉至关重要。
碳和生物多样性目标协同作用
遗憾的是，目前生物多样性仍然被视为一个额外的可选项。这从下面的数字就可以看出：联合国气候变化大会吸引了成千上万的代表和大部分的资金，而生物多样性仍然被忽视着，其缔约方大会只有几千代表参加。其实，缺乏生态考量的气候变化目标可能会产生意料不到的后果。
欧盟生物燃料倡议增加了欧洲内外的森林砍伐，减少发展中国家毁林和森林退化（REDD）以牺牲全球大部分地区的森林为代价，推动了种植园的发展，栖息地继续以植树的名义被破坏，比如巴基斯坦的“十亿棵树”大行动（主要是种植桉树，而实际上这个树种很容易受到气候和疾病的影响）或萨赫勒的“绿色长城”，就如同它的名字一样，其造价极其昂贵，很可能失败（疾病和干旱很容易破坏植树的努力），还影响了本地生态系统。
功能性生态系统对气候变化的作用更大，把一些树优先种植到非原生地区（无论是草原、沙漠还是其他不是它们原生的地方），并不是应对气候变化的可持续方式。此外，功能性生态系统虽然吸收了很多的碳，包括土壤中的碳，而原有森林的持续丧失，如印度尼西亚的极具生物多样性的泥炭地森林，将远远抵消这些新努力所减少的二氧化碳量。这些不适当的目标应该被视为政治信号，没有解决气候变化和生物多样性丧失的迫切问题。
然而我们还是有机会的。只关注气候变化将优先考虑温带和北方地区大量的完整“荒野”，但调整碳和生物多样性目标则可以提供更多的好处。我们可以维持重要的生态系统服务，并在保持生物多样性的同时促进气候目标。 这些方法需要机制化和主流化，以经济上可行的方式保护关键地区，并在其他可行的地区实现可持续发展。这些目标也可以与中国的生态红线政策等措施相吻合，从而为社会发展和保护生物多样性提供可行性目标。
将可持续发展主流化
只有将可持续发展主流化，它才会起到应有的作用，而不可持续的行为不仅会造成生态灾难，还会威胁我们的粮食安全和安全。 如果我们要实现未来的目标并拥有一个更安全的未来，将生物多样性纳入主流并协调气候和生物多样性行动至关重要。
要做到这一点，需要每个人的参与，需要全面了解我们如何与地球互动、如何使用资源，以及如何做得更好。 就粮食生产而言，少浪费、吃得更好、吃得更绿色是关键。也就是说，仅保护生态系统的完整性并不足以维系生物多样性，而是需要整个系统的共同努力。 从田地边缘的绿色和生态多样化，到更有机和低化学物农业生产、减少肉类消费，我们可以大大减少因对食品的不当需求而带给土地和本地生态系统的压力，且降低脂肪和化学物质的摄入对人类健康也很有益。 购买衣服和其他商品也应该着眼于可持续性和耐用性，而非不断需要消耗更多资源的一次性用品。为了实现可持续性，还必须对供应链进行跟踪，包括绿色金融和贷款应以独立环境影响评估为基础。
最后，我们需要思考个人如何做出改变，并通过参与、教育和赋权来促进更绿色的选择。 实现一个新的绿色未来需要我们所有人，需要每一个人去考虑该如何生活，从政府、企业到公民，社会的每个部分都要做出选择，为我们自己、我们的子孙后代和地球，提供一个更可持续和更安全的未来。
Developing targets that work for Biodiversity and climate change
Alice C. Hughes
2021 is known as a super year for biodiversity, a year of meetings of global and lasting significance to the future of this planet. In the CBD COP the post-2020 global biodiversity framework is meant to be developed. This framework is meant to set targets to “bend the curve of global biodiversity loss”, but to do this it must first understand why the predecessor to the Post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF) –the Aichi targets failed to achieve their goals.
Learning from past targets
The Aichi targets aimed to prevent global biodiversity loss through set goals which ran over a “decade of biodiversity” from 2010-2020. Yet whilst these goals were ambitious, many of them were not measurable, and many did not include the steps necessary to be effective, setting a target with no path of how to achieve it. Whilst none of the Aichi targets was completely filled, understanding why these targets failed to gain traction is critical the GBF garnering greater success. Firstly commitment; Aichi was not negotiated by senior political figures and the will to implement was very variable. Secondly; practicality, as few targets were integrated with national legislation they were not actionable, and in addition many did not target the mechanisms for global biodiversity loss such as why deforestation is occurring. As a consequence whilst targets were all “equal” this fails to acknowledge that biodiversity is not evenly distributed, with developing Nations hosting a disproportionate amount of global biodiversity. Yet, the production of commodities for developed Nations is an enduring issue, and one that drives loss of habitat across the most diverse parts of the planet. Tackling these issues will require mechanistic targets that ensure that supply chains and commodities are produced sustainably, and countries are responsible for their imported footprint. Hence in the GBF the term “common but differentiated responsibilities” acknowledges that how countries act on targets must be representative of the diversity they have and the pressures within that country. To that end a third reason the Aichi targets were largely not successful is that they were not measurable, and achieving targets with no milestones to measure success and ensure that the trajectory is being followed is a major reason why achieving most targets was not possible. To counteract this the GBF aims to set SMART targets (specific, ambitious, measurable, realistic, timebound) to ensure that these targets both meet the drivers of biodiversity loss, can be measured and can be achieved.
Finally, funding was not available for many countries even for the development of the National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plans, many of which were drafted late or never completed, and few of which will be entirely successful. Developing means to support these developing Nations through funds, technology and capacity will be essential to developing the biodiversity baselines needed to develop effective and meaningful targets, and funds like the new Kunming Biodiversity fund can help Nations develop, measure and achieve new targets. It is important not to understate the importance of these targets, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear and the water we drink, we rely on biodiversity. Furthermore mismanaging the environment has unintended consequences, from local-level landslides from a loss of native habitats, to the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks from mismanaging environments and creating novel interactions between stressed wildlife, domestic animals and humans. Biodiversity is not an optional extra, it is our life-support mechanism, and ensuring we have a healthy environment is essential for our own welfare as well as that of future generations.
Synergizing action
Biodiversity is still seen as optional extra, and whilst a climate-change COP will attract tens of thousands of delegates, and major funding, biodiversity continues to remain overlooked with only thousands of delegates. Yet climate change targets without ecological considerations can have unintended consequences, the EU biofuels initiative increased deforestation both within and outside Europe, REDD has fueled the growth of plantations at the expense of forest across much of the planet, and habitats continue to be destroyed in the name of trees such as the Billion tree tsunami in Pakistan (where they aim to plant a billion trees, largely Eucalyptus, which may be vulnerable to climate and disease) or the Great green wall in the Sahel, which like its namesake (the great green wall of Poplars in China) is expensive, is likely to fail (in China disease and drought undid the tree planting efforts) and destroys native ecosystems. Functional ecosystems do more for climate change, and prioritizing adding trees to areas they do not belong (whether that be a savannah, desert or simply somewhere they are not native) is unlikely to be a sustainable way to counteract climate change. Furthermore, functional ecosystems sequester more carbon, including in the soils, and the continued loss of forests such as the biodiverse peatland forests of Indonesia will produce more carbon dioxide than these new endeavors will prevent. These inappropriate targets should be seen as little more than political signals, which fail to tackle or acknowledge that better and more integrated targets are needed for both climate and for biodiversity.
Yet, we have an opportunity. Whilst focusing on climate change alone would prioritize the large extants of intact “wilderness” across temperate and boreal regions, aligning carbon and biodiversity targets can provide more benefits, maintain vital ecosystem service provision, and maintain biodiversity whilst facilitating climate targets. Such approaches need to be mechanized and mainstreamed so that economically viable ways to protect key areas and sustainably develop elsewhere are possible. Such targets also fit with approaches such as China’s ecological Conservation redline policy, and thus provide economically viable targets that serve us as well as protecting biodiversity.
Mainstreaming sustainable development
Until sustainability is mainstreamed, it will not be effective, yet unsustainable actions have not only ecological consequences but also threatens our food security and our safety. Mainstreaming biodiversity and aligning climate and biodiversity action are essential if we are going to meet future targets and have a more secure future. To do this will take everyone, it requires a holistic understanding of how we interact with the planet, how we use resources, and how we could do better. In terms of food production, taking less (less waste), eating better, eating greener are crucial, this means ensuring that as only conserving intact ecosystems is insufficient for biodiversity we need whole system efforts to maintain biodiversity. From green and diverse fieldmargins, to more organic and low chemical spray agriculture, and reducing meat consumption we can substantially reduce the pressure on land, and on native ecosystems for food commodities; and with lower fat, and lower chemical intakes also benefits for human health. Buying of clothes and other commodities should also aim for sustainability, durability and not a disposable economy that continues to require more resources, and supply chains must be tracked for sustainability. In development, engagement processes, green finance and loans contingent on independent environmental impact assessments are necessary. Ultimately we need to think about how individuals make choices, and facilitate greener choices through engagement, education and empowerment to act. Reaching a new greener future will take us all, and requires us to consider how we live, and for every part of society, from government, business to citizens to make choices which will provide a more sustainable and secure future for them, their children, and the planet.
参考文献：Alice C. Hughes. 我们需要制定促进生物多样性保护和应对气候变化相协同的目标:1-1[2021-12-01].
http://biogreen.cbcgdf.org/nd.jsp?id=34&fromColId=115
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