Wednesday, 14 January 2010 - 9.00am - 10.30am
Speaker: Wolfgang Cramer
Abstract
Responding to scenarios of risks for the global environment and the human life-support system, international conventions have been established that aim to safeguard environmental sustainability, notably the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and others. These conventions involve formal bodies for science-policy interaction (e.g., the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice – SBSTTA). The development of the actual science base for policy is (by definition) independent of policy and also frequently considered incomplete or inadequate for public and private decision making. Climate policy is supported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), and preparations are underway to establish a comparable entity for biodiversity and ecosystem services (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – IPBES). The IPCC represents a remarkable legacy, having fostered an entire generation of scientists with awareness of multiple and pluridisciplinary aspects of Earth System science who produce steadily improving knowledge in climatology, climate impact sciences and economic and technological ways to deal with climate change. Yet, the goals of climate policy appear to be simpler, compared to those of stabilising human use of the global biosphere. Achieving both goals will therefore require an unprecedented depth of the scientific assessment of the terrestrial and marine biosphere, its interaction with human development, and specifically its ability to provision services for all humans on the planet in a sustainable way. Implementing any findings from such research for improved governance of the biosphere will require multiple “deals” of truly global scale, deeply rooted in the sustainable development of every single system of using biological land and sea resources.