Bird's eye view of European biodiversity policy under climate change
Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Anthropogenic pressures have pushed both climate and ecosystems to the point that their stability and functioning is at risk. Halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020 is one of the goals of the European Union. Climate change has been identified as one of the key challenges for biodiversity conservation in the EU. Empirical observations of climate change impacts, predictive tools and approaches, and appropriate policy responses are developed in separate fields of research with different methodologies and cultures. My thesis aims at bringing these three aspects together to explore responses to climate change from the perspective of biodiversity in the European Union. The thesis consists of a summary and five chapters. Chapter I looks into EU biodiversity policy in light of needs arising from climate change, with a focus on bridges between climate change impacts to appropriate conservation responses and further to policy. Chapter II evaluates approaches to reducing uncertainty in conservation prioritization based on ensemble modelling of species distributions. Chapter III builds methodologically on the findings of chapter II to explore the balance between various aims of biodiversity funding in the EU and how allocations of the funds reflect those aims. Chapters IV and V explore the balance between mitigation benefits and adaptation drawbacks of bioenergy as regards biodiversity conservation. The existing EU biodiversity policy has more potential to support effective adaptation than what its current interpretation and practice allows, although there seem to be gaps that cannot be addressed with the existing policies. The numerous scientific recommendations for conservation responses to climate change mainly address species range shifts. There is a mismatch between future conservation needs and the current practice of allocating funds for biodiversity conservation in the EU. For birds of European conservation concern, climate change drives larger changes in range size than land use for short-rotation woody bioenergy. However, bioenergy was predicted to have a negative impact on a larger proportion of the species than climate. Three policy recommendations arise from my thesis. First, compliance with strategic environmental assessment and green infrastructure guidance should be ensured for biodiversity projects receiving funds from the EU Structural and Cohesion funds. Second, biodiversity project funding from the SCF funds needs to be explicitly linked to the biodiversity strategy goals and assessed from the perspective of biodiversity needs. Indicators of project success should include an indicator relevant for biodiversity. Third, mitigation of climate change is a key strategy for biodiversity conservation, as it makes effective adaptation more feasible.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Laura Meller
Language: English
Subfield: Ecological Modeling
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Climate action, Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1955993596