Investigating biodiversity trends in different mitigation scenarios with a national integrated assessment model

Abstract

The inclusion of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in climate mitigation pathways is critical and can be reached by assessing their consequences through the deployment of appropriate indicators to that end. Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are important tools for understanding possible impacts caused by adopting new policies. We investigate terrestrial biodiversity trends (life on land: SDG 15) for three different climate mitigation scenarios for Brazil: (1) A scenario compatible with a world that maintains its current policies with current deforestation rates in the Amazon and the Cerrado biomes; (2) A scenario in which Brazil fulfils its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC); and (3) A scenario compatible with a world that limits warming to 1.5°C. We use the Brazilian Land-Use and Energy System model (BLUES), a national IAM, to show the implications of the transitions involved in the above-mentioned scenarios for the country up to 2050. We conduct a post-processing analysis using consolidated biodiversity indicators to emphasize how different IAM greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation solutions present distinct positive and negative potential impacts on biodiversity in Brazil. However, our analysis does not consider the impacts associated with climate change, but only the risks imposed by mitigation policies. Our results indicate that biodiversity loss decreases in the scenarios from (1) to (3), implying that stronger climate change mitigation actions could result in smaller biodiversity losses. We conclude that Brazil has the opportunity to align its biodiversity and climate goals through nature-based solutions (NBS), such as forest conservation, restoration, pasture recovery, and the use of crop-pasture and agroforestry systems.