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The 11th Plenary meeting of the IPBES approved the IPBES Assessment Report on the Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss and the Determinants of Transformative Change and Options for Achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity — also known as the Transformative Change Report — that can now be used by policymakers.
The report, prepared over the last three years, has identified the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss and the kind of system-wide changes needed to conserve and restore biodiversity for a more just and sustainable world. It explains what transformative change is, how it occurs, and how it can be accelerated to create a just and sustainable world.
“Transformative change for a just and sustainable world is urgent because there is a closing window of opportunity to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and to prevent triggering the potentially irreversible decline and the projected collapse of key ecosystem functions,” said Karen O’Brien, one of the three co-chairs of the committee that worked on the report.
These transformative changes are important to meet the 23 targets and four goals set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in 2022 by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The deadline for meeting the targets is 2030 while that for the goals is 2050. These changes would also help support progress towards the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.
Earlier in 2019, the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services had defined transformative change as “a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values”. The Transformative Change Report builds on this and further clarifies this definition, focusing on what transformative change means, how it occurs and how to promote and accelerate it for a just and sustainable world.
The report emphasises that it is not just what people do, in terms of strategies and actions, but also how they do it, in terms of principles and shifts in views, structures and practices, taking into account different visions, worldviews and values that can make a difference. It provides practical guidance for decision-makers, business, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities to bring about transformative changes.
“Transformative change is rarely the outcome of a single event, driver, or actor. It is better understood as changes that each of us can create, and multiple cascading shifts that trigger and reinforce one another, often in unexpected ways,” Arun Agrawal, who is also a co-chair of the committee, said.
More than 100 experts worked on the report and assessed more than 850 separate visions of a sustainable world for nature and people.
The underlying causes of biodiversity loss identified by the report are the disconnection of people from nature and domination over nature and other people; the inequitable concentration of power and wealth; and the prioritisation of short-term individual and material gains. The four principles identified by experts to guide deliberate transformative change are equity and justice; pluralism and inclusion; respectful and reciprocal human-nature relationships; and adaptive learning and action.
“The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment provides critical scientific information to bridge the gap between science and policy and offers a roadmap for addressing the drivers of the nature crisis with tools for action across sectors and society,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme.
The Transformative Change Assessment is the second report that was deliberated up during the 11th IPBES Plenary. While the Nexus Report identified options that countries could use to work on the interlinked global crises in biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate change for being effective; it also looked at the ability to bring about transformative changes which is the topic of the second report.