1. UN report notifies that 40% of amphibian species and 1 million of insect and fauna are threatened
• The UN Report termed as ‘Global Assessment’, stated that, among the approximated 8 million plant, insect and animal species, around 1 million is at risk of extinction within decades.
• The research study confirms that this extreme loss is a direct result of human activity and has the consequence of a direct threat to human well-being worldwide
• The report was endorsed by 130 countries, including the U.S., Russia and China
• The research study was launched in Paris by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
• IPBES is headed by Robert Watson, a British environmental scientist
• The research study has been compiled by 145 expert authors from 50 countries
• The basic foundation of the study lies in the dire need to incorporate a new “post-growth” form of economics, which would help to alter the risks of pollution, habitat destruction and carbon emissions
• The researchers notified that industrial farming and fishing are the major causes of species extinction
• The Species extinction rate has accelerated by tens to hundreds of times over the last 10 million years
• The report also stated that the average abundance of native species in most major habitats has decreased by at least 20%, mostly since 1900
• It also notifies that humans have severely changed 75% of land surface, 40% of oceanic environment and 50% of inland waterways, causing irreparable damage through urbanisation, deforestation and agricultural malpractices.
2. Ireland becomes second country to declare climate emergency
• Ireland has declared climate emergency in their country, to be the second country after Britain to do so.
• An amendment to a parliamentary report declaring a climate emergency and calling on parliament to examine how the Irish government can improve its response to the issue of biodiversity loss was accepted without a vote.
• Irish Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, who moved the amendment, called the decision historic.
• Britain`s parliament became the first in the world to declare a climate emergency, passing the largely symbolic motion on May 1.
• The step followed 11 days of street protests in London by the Extinction Rebellion environmental campaign group.
3. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
• According to global assessment report of the (IPBES) –
• Human beings have aggressively exploited nature.
• Species belonging to a quarter of all studied animal and plant groups on earth are gravely threatened (due to human impact).
• Ecosystem losses have accelerated over the past five decades universally
• Any devastation to tropical areas, which are endowed with greater biodiversity than other regions, is worrisome.
• If the world continues to pursue the current model of economic growth without factoring in environmental costs, one million species could go extinct, many in a matter of decades.
• The global rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years, and it is accelerating alarmingly.
• Marine plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980, affecting at least 267 species, including 86% of marine turtles, 44% of seabirds and 43% of marine mammals.
• Ecological economists have always warned about ever-increasing consumption which courts modifying terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems to suit immediate needs, such as raising agricultural and food output and extracting materials.
• Such modifications severely affect other functions such as water availability, pollination, maintenance of wild variants of domesticated plants and climate regulation.
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