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Assessing species' vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe key concepts, terms, steps and considerations. We stress the importance of identifying the full range of pressures, impacts and their associated mechanisms that species face and using this as a basis for selecting the appropriate assessment approaches for quantifying vulnerability. We outline four CCVA assessment approaches, namely trait?based, correlative, mechanistic and combined approaches and discuss their use. Since any assessment can deliver unreliable or even misleading results when incorrect data and parameters are applied, we discuss finding, selecting, and applying input data and provide examples of open?access resources. Because rare, small?range, and declining?range species are often of particular conservation concern while also posing significant challenges for CCVA, we describe alternative ways to assess them. We also describe how CCVAs can be used to inform IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk. Finally, we suggest future directions in this field and propose areas where research efforts may be particularly valuable.

This edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets focuses on the complex and underexplored intersection between agricultural trade, climate change and food security. It is clear that we cannot tackle hunger without finding adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change in agriculture and food systems. It is also clear that the uneven impact of climate change across regions and countries, and the corresponding changes in food availability and access will affect international trade patterns and trade routes. This report supports these discussions by providing an in-depth analysis of the Paris Agreement and the WTO agreements to enhance clarity and provide guidance on policy options that could strengthen the mutually supportive role of these accords in tackling climate change and hunger. Wide-ranging policy actions are necessary to ensure that trade will contribute to the efforts aimed at ensuring food security and promoting adaptation and mitigation to climate change. The uneven impact of climate change across the world and its implications for agricultural trade, especially for developing countries, underlines the need for a balanced approach to policies, which should enhance the adaptive role of trade, while supporting the most vulnerable.

THE ENERGY CHOICES WE MAKE TODAY ARE resulting in changes in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere that will be seen in the composition of the atmosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. Climate change is here; it’s happening and going to be with us for thousands of years.

Invasive alien species (IAS) threaten human livelihoods and biodiversity globally. Increasing globalization facilitates IAS arrival, and environmental changes, including climate change, facilitate IAS establishment. Here we provide the first global, spatial analysis of the terrestrial threat from IAS in light of twenty-first century globalization and environmental change, and evaluate national capacities to prevent and manage species invasions. We find that one-sixth of the global land surface is highly vulnerable to invasion, including substantial areas in developing economies and biodiversity hotspots. The dominant invasion vectors differ between high-income countries (imports, particularly of plants and pets) and low-income countries (air travel). Uniting data on the causes of introduction and establishment can improve early-warning and eradication schemes. Most countries have limited capacity to act against invasions. In particular, we reveal a clear need for proactive invasion strategies in areas with high poverty levels, high biodiversity and low historical levels of invasion.

Green Climate Fund B.07/04: Recommended action of the Board, a. Takes note of the information presented in document GCF/B.07/05 Initial Results Management Framework of the Fund; and b. Adopts the draft decision presented in Annex 1 to this document

The biodiversity of the Solomon Islands, in general, is in good health. Low human population density, uninhabited islands, difficulties to access and use natural resources, and customary and legal protection, in various ways, can help explain this. Threats to the country’s biodiversity are mainly localized and vary across islands, biomes, ecosystems, corridors and taxonomy. In recent years habitat destruction and overexploitation of wildlife has had enormous pressure on all types of biomes. Uncontrolled and poor waste management practices have also been considered a threat to biodiversity. Emerging issues such as invasive species and climate change could only exacerbate these pressures. Coupled with capacity constraints or inadequate capacity (financial, human resources, technological and institutional capacity) to implement mandates and enforce legislation, biodiversity loss thus results from multiple causes in quite a complex way.

Rapidly expanding human populations and associated economic growth and overconsumption is resulting in serious degradation of the natural environment human survival depends on (Vitousek et al., 1997; Sanderson et al., 2002; Orr, 2004; Alroy, 2010; Branch et al., 2013). Almost half of the global human population currently lives within 150km of the coast (UN Atlas of the Oceans, 2014). This results in severe pressures being placed on marine and coastal environments. Anthropogenic impacts on oceans include physical alterations of the coasts and seafloor, as well as chemical and biological contamination through sewage, industrial wastes and agricultural discharges, dredging, desalination, shipping, and fossil fuel and ore extraction. These pressures, together with overfishing, by-catch, destructive fishing methods (e.g. blast fishing), introduction of invasive species, boat strikes, acoustic pollution, climate-related changes (i.e. ocean acidification, sea level rise, freshwater inundations, cyclones) can cause structural changes in marine communities and the loss of genetic variability and other side-effects of human interference with exceptionally complex ocean ecosystems (Gray et al., 1979; Goldberg, 1995; Vitousek et al. 1997; Islam and Tanaka, 2004; Pauly et al., 2005; Panigada et al., 2006; Crain et al., 2008; Halpern et al., 2008; Ramirez-Llodra et al., 2011)

The survey team were able to spend 3 days on Fonualei Island and two days on Late with support from a Vava’u based fishing boat and checked several areas not visited during the previous 2003 and 2004 scientific surveys. We identified that the Polynesian megapode (malau) Megapodius pritchardii continues to survive in good numbers on Fonualei, locating good numbers in a new area suggesting the total population may be close to 1000. We did not located malau on Late and concluded that there is very little chance that they survive on this island. Both islands are important refuges for Tongan bird species with Fonualei Island of greater significance for malau, and seabirds which nest there in their thousands, and Late Island having a greater variety of landbirds including the endemic Samoan whistler Pachycephala jacquinoti.

Abstract Global changes, from habitat loss and invasive species to anthropogenic climate change, have initiated the sixth great mass extinction event in Earth's history. As species become threatened and vanish, so too do the broader ecosystems and myriad benefits to human well-being that depend upon biodiversity. Bringing an end to global biodiversity loss requires that limited available resources be guided to those regions that need it most. The biodiversity hotspots do this based on the conservation planning principles of irreplaceability and vulnerability. Here, we review the development of the hotspots over the past two decades and present an analysis of their biodiversity, updated to the current set of 35 regions. We then discuss past and future efforts needed to conserve them, sustaining their fundamental role both as the home of a substantial fraction of global biodiversity and as the ultimate source of many ecosystem services upon which humanity depends.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is conducting research for the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) into the effects of climate change on species protected by CMS. Species have been identified as having a high, medium or low vulnerability to the threat of climate change and have been categorised on the basis of a standardised assessment process. This leaflet summarises the emerging results from an assessment of CMS Appendix I species, in order to provide guidance to policy makers at the earliest opportunity. Results highlight a number of processes by which greenhouse gas emissions and climatic changes will increasingly threaten migratory species; all species assessed will be affected by these impacts. A broad set of biological, geographical and socio-economic factors will influence species vulnerability. Identifying these factors and developing further conservation management practices will be essential for the short term future of these species. In the long term, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is vital if we are to avoid unmanageable levels of climate change.