Exceeding two degrees will have catastrophic consequences in nature, according to experts

The change in the use of I usually and invasive species are the main threats to the biodiversityhowever if the global warming reached 2 degrees above the pre-industrial era, it would drive the climate change as the greatest risk with “catastrophic consequences” for the species.

According to different experts consulted by EFE, currently the Earth has warmed 1.2 degrees according to the latest official measurements of 2021, very close to the 1.5 degrees agreed in the Paris Agreement, and the UN has warned of that, at this rate, the Earth will warm up to almost 3 degrees by the end of the century.

In this scenario and according to the report “Living Planet 2022″ of the conservationist NGO WWF, there has already been a “average 69% decline in population abundance” of animals on the entire planet between 1979 and 2018, in addition to the extinction between 1 and 2.5% of the species of birds, mammals, reptiles and fish.

The main causes of this loss of biodiversity are changes in land use, invasive alien species, pollution and climate change.

For José González, a professor from the Department of Ecology at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), change in land use -considered the greatest threat from invasive species- consists in the transformation of the territory.

An example of this is the felling of forest areas to convert them into cultivation land, as occurs in the Amazon, which means “eliminate habitats for fauna and fragment the territory, leaving isolated habitats”.

However, if global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees “This would destabilize so much that biodiversity would be greatly threatened”González has warned, and if the threshold of 2 degrees were crossed, they would reach “catastrophic consequences”, both for the species and for society and the economy.

All these threats to biodiversity have “anthropic root”that is, they are caused by humans, which makes them different from the previous climatic changes that the Earth has experienced since its origins.

González has also stressed that another of his disparities is the speed at which the current climate change is happening, since the climate “it has changed many times, but over very long periods of time”.

A rate of increase in temperatures before which many species “They will not have the ability to emigrate to seek a more favorable climate or time to evolve and adapt”.

In fact, some birds have already begun to change their migration and reproduction cycles, as has been pointed out by SEO/BirdLife’s head of energy and climate, David Howell, who emphasizes that these species “they depend on the availability of food and habitats to nest”and this warming phenomenon throws them “little chance of survival”.

Howell has emphasized that one in eight species of birds is in danger of extinction and more than half require “specific recovery actions to guarantee their survival”and has verified alterations in the relationships between predators, prey and competitors.

“If the warming favors a predator or a competitor of a specific species more”imbalances in nature would occur.

For this reason, the expert has claimed “healthy and intact ecosystems” as the only alternative for the absorption of CO2, the reduction “of the rate of extinction and, in the best of cases, avoid it” Y “recover the populations” of species that are already endangered.