300 biodiversity ‘hot spots’ set to be ravaged
Unless nations dramatically improve on carbon cutting pledges made under the 2015 Paris climate treaty, the planet's richest concentrations of animal and plant life will be irreversibly ravaged by global warming, scientists warned yesterday.
An analysis of 8,000 published risk assessments for species showed a high danger for extinction in nearly 300 biodiversity "hot spots", on land and in the sea, if temperatures rise three degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, they reported in the journal Biological Conservation.
Earth's surface has heated up 1C so far, and the Paris Agreement enjoins nations to cap warming at "well below" 2C, and 1.5C if possible.
National commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions -- assuming they are honoured -- would still see temperatures soar well above 3C by century's end, if not sooner.
So-called endemic species -- plants and animals found exclusively in a specific area -- will be hit hardest in a warming world.
From snow leopards in the Himalayas and the vaquita porpoise in the Gulf of California to lemurs in Madagascar and forest elephants in central Africa, many of the planet's most cherished creatures will wind up on a path to extinction unless humanity stops loading the atmosphere with CO2 and methane, the study found.
Endemic land species in biodiverse hot spots are nearly three times as likely to suffer losses due to climate change than more widespread flora and fauna, and 10 times more likely than invasive species.
"Climate change threatens areas overflowing with species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world," said lead author Stella Manes, a researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
"The risk for such species to be lost forever increases more than 10-fold if we miss the goals of the Paris Agreement."
More and more scientists concede that capping global warming at 1.5C target is probably out of reach. But every tenth of a degree matters when it comes to avoiding impacts, they say. Some concentrations of wildlife are more vulnerable than others.
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