Anthony Godin | Global Biodiversity Scenarios: What Can They Tell Us About Biodiversity - Related Fi

Pictured is Anthony Godin.

Anthony Godin began by introducing the four major ecosystem services and biodiversity-related financial risks (BRFRs), and outlined three biodiversity scenarios for assessing financial risks.

Ecosystem services encompass four main functions: provisioning, regulation, cultural and recreational functions, and support functions. Provisioning functions refer to the ecosystem's ability to produce or provide products, such as food, water, and raw materials. Regulation functions refer to the ecosystem's ability to regulate the human environment, such as mitigating droughts and floods, regulating climate, purifying air, buffering disturbances, and controlling harmful organisms. Cultural and recreational functions refer to the non-material benefits people derive from the ecosystem through spiritual experiences, knowledge acquisition, subjective perceptions, leisure, and aesthetic experiences. Support functions are the fundamental functions necessary to ensure the provision of all other ecosystem services, such as maintaining nutrient cycling for life on Earth, renewing and maintaining soil fertility, and generating and maintaining biodiversity.

Financial risks related to biodiversity fall into two categories: physical risks and transitional risks. On the one hand, physical risks arise when biodiversity loss damages ecosystems upon which economic activities depend. Physical risks can be assessed by observing the degree to which industries depend on ecosystem services. On the other hand, transitional risks emerge when changes in policies, markets, and behaviors aimed at protecting biodiversity affect business operations. Transitional risks can be assessed by measuring the biodiversity footprint of various industries.

Anthony Godin points out that existing static assessment methods completely ignore the nonlinearity and complexity of ecosystems, as well as the potential dynamic adaptations of societies; meanwhile, financial institutions are placing increasing emphasis on conducting biodiversity stress tests. Therefore, it is necessary to construct more applicable biodiversity scenarios.

He further pointed out that biodiversity scenarios are qualitative and quantitative descriptions of potential future changes. Assessing transition risks can be done through two types of scenarios: target-seeking scenarios and policy-screening scenarios. Target-seeking scenarios determine different pathways to achieving the expected goals, while policy-screening scenarios predict the effects and impacts of alternative policies or management programs. Assessing physical risks can be done through exploratory scenarios, which analyze a series of possible future scenarios for a given change or degradation in nature.

Next, Anthony Godin shared the process of constructing biodiversity scenarios and pointed out the limitations of existing models.

He stated that the first step in constructing biodiversity scenarios is defining a conceptual framework. When constructing scenarios, the goals and timelines must be aligned with the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Therefore, scenario projections for 2030 and 2050 are highly representative. This is because 2030 is the expected year for the world to end biodiversity loss, and 2050 is the year when net biodiversity growth begins to be recorded.

The second step is to design scenario narratives that describe the possible evolution of the world within a specific context. For example, this involves describing the direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, including changes in policy, technology, and other factors. The next step is to translate these qualitative descriptions into corresponding quantitative parameters and assign them to different economic sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, or energy.

Then, models are used to predict the quantified trajectory and its impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Finally, simulations estimate quantitative outcomes related to the economy, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and food security.

He further analyzed and compared the differences between assessment models of direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, finding that the Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) lacked precise information on sectors and subsectors affecting biodiversity; the Marine Model was not yet integrated and required much further work to analyze global dynamics.

In addition, biodiversity models provide biodiversity indicators, while ecosystem services models measure the changing contribution of ecosystems to human survival and quality of life. However, biodiversity is multifaceted and cannot be measured by a single indicator.

The most widely used indicator is mean species abundance (MSA). However, research shows that genetic diversity has never been measured, and existing indicators often overrepresent mammalian and bird species.

Finally, Anthony Godin pointed out areas where current biodiversity research needs improvement and offered suggestions for future research.

He stated that improving biodiversity scenario setting is a long-term goal, requiring the design of large-scale models for measurement, while also considering several areas for improvement. First, it's necessary to simultaneously assess transition and physical risks. Second, the qualitative narrative should include critical points and institutional shifts to improve the coherence of scenario setting and understanding of biophysical trajectories. Third, the descriptions of various sectors within the modeling framework should be improved. Fourth, the dynamics of biodiversity and ecosystem services should be dynamically fed back into the model to better describe the interaction between the economy and biodiversity.

Regarding methods for assessing physical and transition risks in the short term, Anthony Goldin suggests that for physical risk assessment, we can first use the Environmental Sustainability Gap (ESGAP) framework to address the lack of existing physical scenarios. This framework measures whether countries are moving towards environmental sustainability.

To address the risks of transformation, one approach is to study the compatibility between IAM outputs and extended multi-regional input-output (MRIO) tables (such as EXIOBASE) to better identify industries most affected by ecological transformation. However, in the long run, more robust and applicable models are still needed.Another approach is to apply current work on climate transition risk analysis to biodiversity risk analysis.