The benefits of ecosystems to humanity will decrease by 9% with climate change

As climate change redistributes terrestrial ecosystems across the planet, the world’s natural capital is expected to decline, causing a 9% loss of ecosystem services by 2100, according to a study by scientists at UC Davis and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. From the University of California (USA) and Published in the magazine “Nature”.‘.

Breathable air, clean water, healthy forests, and biodiversity contribute to people’s well-being in ways that can be very difficult to quantify. “Natural Capital” It is a concept used by scientists, economists and policy makers to represent the current and future flow of benefits that the planet’s natural resources provide to people.

“The big question is what do we lose when we lose the ecosystem,” says lead author Bernardo Bastian Olvera, a doctoral student at UC Davis when the study was conducted and a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps. What do we gain if we can limit climate change and avoid some of its impacts on natural systems? This study helps us better consider harms that are not usually taken into account. “It also reveals a neglected but surprising dimension of the impacts of climate change on natural systems: its potential to exacerbate global economic inequality.”

“Natural capital” is the concept used by scientists, economists and policy makers to represent the current and future flow of benefits that the planet’s natural resources provide to people.

When countries lose natural capital, their economies suffer. The study concluded that by 2100, climate change-induced changes in vegetation, rainfall patterns and rising carbon dioxide would lead to an average decline of 1.3% in gross domestic product, or GDP, in all countries analysed. Moreover, profound disparities were found in the distribution of these effects.

“According to our research, the poorest 50% of countries and regions in the world are expected to bear a staggering 90% of the damage to GDP,” adds Bastian Olvera.The losses of the richest 10% may be limited to only 2%.”

According to the authors, this is largely because low-income countries tend to rely more on natural resources for their economic production, and a greater portion of their wealth comes in the form of natural capital.

For the study, the authors used global vegetation models, climate models, and World Bank estimates of natural capital values ​​to estimate the consequences of climate change on countries’ ecosystem services, economic production, and natural capital stocks.

These estimates may be conservative, because the analysis only took into account terrestrial systems, especially forests and grasslands. Bastian Olvera is planning it Addressing the impact on marine ecosystems in future research. The study also did not take into account disturbances such as forest fires or tree death caused by insects.

By 2100, climate change-induced changes in vegetation, precipitation patterns, and rising carbon dioxide cause an average decline of 1.3% in GDP, across all countries analysed.

The overall results underscore the importance of developing climate policies that take into account the special values ​​that each country derives from its natural systems.

“With this study, we are integrating natural systems and human well-being into an economic framework,” said Frances C. Moore, lead author and associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis. Being dependent on these systems, we must recognize these overlooked harms and keep them in mind when we consider the cost of climate change.

“Thanks to the efforts of this research team, we now know that Damage to ecosystems affects human well-being in a measurable way that is largely disproportionate across populations. — says Jeffrey Mantz, NSF program director. “The results will be key to reducing economic losses in the coming decades.”