Climate change is both a cause and aneffect of biodiversity change. Along with anthropogenicdispersion, climate change is the main driver of change inthe geographical distribution of both beneficial and harmfulspecies, crops, livestock, harvested wild species, pests,predators and pathogens. And the capacity of ecosystems toadapt to climate change depends on the diversity of speciesthey currently support. This paper considers the connectionbetween climate, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Theimpact of climate change on human wellbeing is measured bythe change in ecosystem services caused by climate relatedchange in biodiversity. Similarly, the role of speciesrichness and abundance in climate change mitigation oradaptation is measured by the change in the climate-relatedservices of biodiversity. The categories of ecosystemservices are those applied in the millennium ecosystemassessment. The paper first considers how climate andbiodiversity have been linked in recent attempts to link thetwo things. From the side of the natural sciences, thiscovers the consequences of climate change for variousdimensions of biodiversity. From the side of the socialsciences, it covers the value of biodiversity in the carboncycle. It then uses insights from the economic treatment ofthe relation between biodiversity and ecosystem services tore-evaluate the connection between biodiversity and climatechange, and to draw conclusions for climate policy.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
