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Price, Jeff, Warren, Rachel 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0122-1599, Forstenhäusler, Nicole, Jenkins, Rhosanna and Graham, Erin
(2024)
Assessing the potential risks of climate change on the natural capital of six countries resulting from global warming of 1.5 to 4 °C above pre‑industrial levels.
Climatic Change, 177 (3).
ISSN 0165-0009
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Abstract
We present the results from a new framework providing an assessment of how climate change risks to natural capital accrue with warming of 1.5–4 °C in six countries (China, Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, and India). Unlike typical biodiversity and climate change studies, this assessment also considers landcover and population changes across a range of 17 ecosystem services. The potential impacts of climate change (alone) on natural capital at 1.5 °C is greatest in Brazil and least in Ghana. However, when population and landcover change are included, areas projected to be at high natural capital risk begin to accrue by 1.5 °C in all countries. By 2 °C, Ethiopia and Ghana show increasing areas at high risk, even though they are at low risk owing to climate alone. Thus, current impacts to biodiversity and ecosystem services and changes in potential demand coupled with warming exceed changes projected by climate alone. However, this also indicates that there is adaptation potential, especially with warming of<2 °C, to reduce risk through restoring habitat. At lower levels of warming, targeted restoration of marginal agricultural habitats would increase the bank of natural capital for use by people and provide support for remaining agricultural lands. By 3 °C, the adaptation potential from restoration is substantially less:<1% in Brazil, India and Egypt; 7–8% in China and Ethiopia; but still 26% in Ghana. This indicates that restoration as an adaptation option for biodiversity, and thus, natural capital, rapidly decreases with increasing temperatures. By 2100, factoring in population change (SSP2), current ecological footprint, and current landcover, even with only 1.5 °C warming, large parts of Brazil, eastern China, most of Egypt, much of Ethiopia, southwestern Ghana (except for protected areas), and most of India are at high to extreme natural capital risk with an adaptation deficit potentially equating to a soft adaptation limit.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Funding information: The study was funded by the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | climate change,risk assessment,human systems,ecosystem services framework,sdg 15 - life on land,sdg 11 - sustainable cities and communities,sdg 12 - responsible consumption and production,sdg 13 - climate action,3* ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/life_on_land |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA |
| UEA Research Groups: | University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climatic Research Unit |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Mar 2024 12:33 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Mar 2024 10:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/94596 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10584-023-03650-w |
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