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Visualizing the Biggest Threats to Earth’s Biodiversity

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Earth's biodiversity loss

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The Biggest Threats to Earth’s Biodiversity

Biodiversity benefits humanity in many ways.

It helps make the global economy more resilient, it functions as an integral part of our culture and identity, and research has shown it’s even linked to our physical health.

However, despite its importance, Earth’s biodiversity has decreased significantly over the last few decades. In fact, between 1970 and 2016, the population of vertebrate species fell by 68% on average worldwide. What’s causing this global decline?

Today’s graphic uses data from WWF’s Living Planet Report 2020 to illustrate the biggest threats to Earth’s biodiversity, and the impact each threat has had globally.

Measuring the Loss of Biodiversity

Before looking at biodiversity’s biggest threats, first thing’s first—how exactly has biodiversity changed over the years?

WWF uses the Living Planet Index (LPI) to measure biodiversity worldwide. Using data from over 4,000 different species, LPI tracks the abundance of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians across the globe.

Here’s a look at each region’s average decline between 1970 and 2016:

RankRegionAverage decline (between 1970 and 2016)
1Latin America & Caribbean94%
2Africa65%
3Asia Pacific45%
4North America33%
5Europe and Central Asia24%

Latin America & Caribbean has seen the biggest drop in biodiversity at 94%. This region’s drastic decline has been mainly driven by declining reptile, amphibian, and fish populations.

Despite varying rates of loss between regions, it’s clear that overall, biodiversity is on the decline. What main factors are driving this loss, and how do these threats differ from region to region?

Biggest Threats to Biodiversity, Overall

While it’s challenging to create an exhaustive list, WWF has identified five major threats and shown each threats proportional impact, averaged across all regions:

ThreatProportion of threat (average across all regions)
Changes in land and sea use50%
Species overexploitation24%
Invasive species and disease13%
Pollution7%
Climate Change6%

Across the board, changes in land and sea use account for the largest portion of loss, making up 50% of recorded threats to biodiversity on average. This makes sense, considering that approximately one acre of the Earth’s rainforests is disappearing every two seconds.

Species overexploitation is the second biggest threat at 24% on average, while invasive species takes the third spot at 13%.

Biggest Threats to Biodiversity, By Region

When looking at the regional breakdown, the order of threats in terms of biodiversity impact is relatively consistent across all regions—however, there are a few discrepancies:

In Latin America and Caribbean, climate change has been a bigger biodiversity threat than in other regions, and this is possibly linked to an increase in natural disasters. Between 2000 and 2013, the region experienced 613 extreme climate and hydro-meteorological events, from typhoons and hurricanes to flash floods and droughts.

Another notable variation from the mean is species over-exploitation in Africa, which makes up 35% of the region’s threats. This is higher than in other regions, which sit around 18-27%.

While the regional breakdowns differ slightly from place to place, one thing remains constant across the board—all species, no matter how small, play an important role in the maintenance of Earth’s ecosystems.

Will we continue to see a steady decline in Earth’s biodiversity, or will things level out in the near future?

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How Carbon Dioxide Removal is Critical to a Net-Zero Future

Here’s how carbon dioxide removal methods could help us meet net-zero targets and and stabilize the climate.

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Teaser image for a post on the importance of carbon dioxide removal in the push for a net-zero future.

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The following content is sponsored by Carbon Streaming

How Carbon Dioxide Removal is Critical to a Net-Zero Future

Meeting the Paris Agreement temperature goals and avoiding the worst consequences of a warming world requires first and foremost emission reductions, but also the ongoing direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.

We’ve partnered with Carbon Streaming to take a deep look at carbon dioxide removal methods, and the role that they could play in a net-zero future. 

What is Carbon Dioxide Removal?

Carbon Dioxide Removal, or CDR, is the direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and its durable storage in geological, terrestrial, or ocean reservoirs, or in products. 

And according to the UN Environment Programme, all least-cost pathways to net zero that are consistent with the Paris Agreement have some role for CDR. In a 1.5°C scenario, in addition to emissions reductions, CDR will need to pull an estimated 3.8 GtCO2e p.a. out of the atmosphere by 2035 and 9.2 GtCO2e p.a. by 2050.

The ‘net’ in net zero is an important quantifier here, because there will be some sectors that can’t decarbonize, especially in the near term. This includes things like shipping and concrete production, where there are limited commercially viable alternatives to fossil fuels.

Not All CDR is Created Equal

There are a whole host of proposed ways for removing CO2 from the atmosphere at scale, which can be divided into land-based and novel methods, and each with their own pros and cons. 

Land-based methods, like afforestation and reforestation and soil carbon sequestration, tend to be the cheapest options, but don’t tend to store the carbon for very long—just decades to centuries. 

In fact, afforestation and reforestation—basically planting lots of trees—is already being done around the world and in 2020, was responsible for removing around 2 GtCO2e. And while it is tempting to think that we can plant our way out of climate change, think that the U.S. would need to plant a forest the size of New Mexico every year to cancel out their emissions.

On the other hand, novel methods like enhanced weathering and direct air carbon capture and storage, because they store carbon in minerals and geological reservoirs, can keep carbon sequestered for tens of thousand years or longer. The trade off is that these methods can be very expensive—between $100-500 and north of $800 per metric ton

CDR Has a Critical Role to Play

In the end, there is no silver bullet, and given that 2023 was the hottest year on record—1.45°C above pre-industrial levels—it’s likely that many different CDR methods will end up playing a part, depending on local circumstances. 

And not just in the drive to net zero, but also in the years after 2050, as we begin to stabilize global average temperatures and gradually return them to pre-industrial norms. 

Carbon Streaming uses carbon credit streams to finance CDR projects, such as reforestation and biochar, to accelerate a net-zero future.

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Learn more about Carbon Streaming’s CDR projects.

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