Climate and Biological Diversity: How Should the Effects of Climate Change on Biological Diversity Be Legally Addressed in International and Comparative Law and Solutions?

Abstract

International treaties and declarations on climate change have focused almost exclusively on sources of climate change neglectfully the consequences on biodiversity the ultimate foundation for life on Earth. Although extremely appropriate, such approach neglect to the consequences of climate change on biological diversity and on their components (animals, plants, insects, microorganisms and habitats) almost condemned to disappear due their impossibility to move or adapt. Therefore, a lack of legal rules in international law has arisen due to lack of international legal framework to address loss biodiversity by conserving it in a mixture of forms of conservation. An example is reflected in “climate change and the law” a report of the Argentine Association of Comparative Law to the XVIII Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law (author Professor Erkki Hollo). In this report, consequence of climate change on the biological diversity has not been addressed due to lack of legal rules (among other reasons). Sustaining agriculture and agrobiodiversity to maintain food production for human beings is part of the “ecosystem services” of biodiversity that have been completely forgotten when the consequences of climate change has not been properly addressed. In order to fill scientific gap grounds from natural science and juridical sciences particularly, international law will be explained in this article arguing for preventive measures to save biodiversity in danger. It is a conceptual paper as most of our work in sciences. First the paper will establish not only the relationship between n the effects of climate change on biodiversity for legal scholars but solutions to the problem will be discussed. Most of the literature on the subject seems to lack the importance of international law and public policy on facing the aforementioned problem and it is not possible to “act” without legal rules.