Climate Change Adaptation Database

Integrating Biodiversity into Climate Change Adaptation Planning

Purpose

The database provides web-based guidance on the integration of biodiversity within adaptation planning. It gathers information tools and case studies from a number of relevant partners. Its purpose is to support Parties as they continue to integrate climate change impacts and response activities through their implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Background

Adaptation to climate change is a complex issue which often requires significant planning and cross-sector support. A number of governments, organizations and agencies have therefore developed information and tools on the integration of biodiversity considerations within adaptation planning.

The database has been created in response to paragraph 8 of decision VIII/30, in which the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity called for the development of suggestions on how to integrate relevant climate change impacts and response activities into the programmes of work of the Convention.

Overview of Main Issues

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to 2005, the average global temperature increased by about 0.76ºC and global mean sea level rose by 12 to 22 cm during the last century. Furthermore, an additional increase of approximately 1.4°C to 5.8°C by 2100 is projected.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warns that this climate change is likely to become the dominant direct driver of biodiversity loss by the end of the century. In fact, climate change is already having an impact on biodiversity either through shifting habitat, changing life cycles, the development of new physical traits or species die-offs and extinctions.

Adaptation activities can help species and ecosystems cope with changing climatic conditions. Ranging from the construction of protective infrastructure to the development of corridors or the planting of resistant tree or crop varieties, adaptation activities can have either a positive, negative or neutral impact on biodiversity.

Links to Other Resources

• Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity Technical Series 41: Connecting Biodiversity and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: Report of the Second Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change
• Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity Technical Series 25: Guidance for Promoting Synergy Among Activities Addressing Biological Diversity, Desertification, Land Degradation and Climate Change (also in French and Spanish)
• Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity Technical Series 10: Interlinkages Between Biological Diversity and Climate Change
• Global Climate Change and Biodiversity
• Climate Change and Biodiversity - IPCC Technical Paper V
• Adapting to Climate Change: Natural Resource Management and Vulnerability Reduction
• Adaptation - UNFCCC
• Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability