The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published their latest assessment report. The report is about the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities at global and regional levels. It also looks at the capacities and limits for adapting to climate change.
Nature and climate interdependent
As was already known, the world needs to take immediate action to avoid disastrous climate changes. But we need to do this while also protecting the nature and biodiversity.
As stated in the report, this work “recognizes the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies and integrates knowledge more strongly across the natural, ecological, social and economic sciences than earlier IPCC assessments”.
This is important, because as we know the climate and nature crises are interconnected, and both needs to be solved together. Nature-based solution is one example of how to integrate climate solutions with measures that protect nature.
The role of nature-based solutions
While the goal is to limit the climate change, we also need to adapt to some of the changes already happening around us, with increasing temperatures and extreme weather.
While not a solution to climate change on its own, nature-based solutions such as restoring rivers, recreating floodplains or using blue-green infrastructure to handle surface water in cities, may help both the ecosystems and humans to adapt.
There are already many initiatives on NBS, with more to come in all the Nordic countries. In S-ITUATION we continue to investigate their effectiveness and how to implement them.
Nordic NBS 