ecosystem and its services can support climate mitigation and adaptation, but will also be affected by climate change. Now, the discussion centers on how best to maintain an ecological-climate relationship while overcoming future challenges and creating multiple benefits.
Climate change is becoming one of the most common threats to ecosystems, affecting individual species and their interactions. By changing the functions or patterns of ecosystems, the impact of climate change may lead to the degradation of ecosystem services, endangering the value of ecosystems to human well-being.
On the contrary, well-managed ecosystems can provide effective and feasible solutions to the growing climate threat, the so-called Nature-based Solutions (NBS) . These NBS have been proposed to increase carbon storage or to avoid further greenhouse gas losses in soil, forests and oceans. These methods include protection and restoration, as well as related ecological, social and economic benefits.
In this issue, Bertram and colleagues estimate that Australia alone can generate a positive net benefit of approximately US$22.8 billion per year through carbon services in coastal ecosystems, based on the social carbon costs of specific countries. Furthermore, ecosystem-based adaptation is becoming a common tool to help people adapt to climate change, such as through natural flood management or the creation of green spaces.
However, when people hear the word "ecosystem service", they usually imagine wild forests, wetlands, or coastal coral reefs. Such misunderstandings are also reflected in the National Bureau of Statistics’ planning, which usually targets photosynthesis. However, the potential of ecosystem services in climate action is likely to be much broader. Berzaghi and colleagues wrote in a commentary on this issue of Nature-Climate Change that carbon compensation provided by wild animals should be emphasized. Incorporating these services into existing carbon credit markets has the potential to address the funding gap in biodiversity conservation and climate action, but there are also many scientific, political and legal challenges that need to be overcome.
In addition to habitats in wild and remote areas, urban ecosystem services are also an important part of the ecological-climate relationship and can directly affect human well-being. More naturalistic urban planning can effectively help people better adapt to the impact of climate change and improve their physical or mental health. In another review of this issue, Pedersen Zari and colleagues discussed the concept of "regenerated living cities" , including green (related to living vegetation and soil), blue (related to water), or mixed infrastructure and integrated vegetation, which will strongly support urban biodiversity, human well-being, and adaptability to climate change.
Although the importance of ecosystem services to climate impacts and actions has been widely recognized, is still slow when it comes to real-world practices. For example, because precise and correct valuations are difficult to perform, climate damage to the ecosystem is often not taken into account in the social cost calculation of carbon. In another commentary in this issue, Druckenmiller wrote about specific technical challenges that prohibit the inclusion of ecosystem valuations into climate policy. Recent advances in data accessibility and methodological innovation are also discussed, and how these advances can help researchers and policy professionals better integrate ecosystem services into climate action.
People generally believe that the application of expanding ecosystem services will not be without costs, and it will not be possible to solve all problems. In fact, there are many concerns surrounding the efforts toward this concept that may be abused and undermine other sectors. Poorly designed plans or assessments may divert attention from energy decarbonization and may even harm local communities. Therefore, we need to pay special attention to preventing ecosystem services from becoming a distraction, casting a shadow ongoing efforts to mitigate and adapt.
To do this, we need to combine ecosystem services and climate action with broader socio-ecological goals.As Fankhauser and his colleagues wrote in their views, we should get rid of the narrow carbon-offset paradigm, ensure that the ecosystems involved in any climate policy are sustainable and broad, and design solutions in partnership with local “indigenous communities”.
