Biodiversity is vital for climate change mitigation and adaptation due to its influence on ecosystem functions and resilience. The biodiversity crisis extends beyond species loss; genetic diversity aids species' adaptability, and ecosystem diversity ensures stability and vital services. Addressing all aspects of biodiversity is crucial to safeguarding ecosystems and enhancing climate resilience.

Dr Sachin Kumar thank you for your contribution to the discussion

The Earth's land and the ocean serve as natural carbon sinks, absorbing large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Conserving and restoring natural spaces, and the biodiversity they contain, is essential for limiting emissions and adapting to climate impacts. Biodiversity can support efforts to reduce the negative effects of climate change. Conserved or restored habitats can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus helping to address climate change by storing carbon.Biodiversity supports food security and sustained livelihoods through overall genetic diversity. ​Genes regulate all biological processes on the planet and increase the ability of organisms to cope with environmental stressors.Biodiversity plays an important role in regulating the climate, thus making a key contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, climate change affects ecosystem dynamics and the distribution and abundance of species and habitats. Biodiversity is about not just the wealth of nature, but also the health of nature. Loss of biodiversity undermines the ability of ecosystems to function effectively and efficiently and thus undermines nature's ability to support a healthy environment. Many animal and plant species are likely to become extinct as ecosystems adjust to climate change. While adaptable species will survive, and other migrate, the end result will be lost biodiversity. Biodiversity helps in pollination, nutrient cycling as well as recycling, greenhouse gas reduction by sequestration. Social and cultural services: Biodiversity provides us with aesthetic pleasure. It provides recreational avenues and rich biological diversity encourages tourism in the region. Changes in climate conditions can affect the health and function of ecosystems and the survival of entire species. The distribution patterns of fossils show evidence of gradual as well as abrupt extinctions related to climate change in the past. The rise in global temperature, sea level, and extreme weather events can cause habitat loss, changes in the timing of seasonal events, and an increase in disease outbreaks, which can lead to the extinction of species.Moreover, climate changes because of human activities speed up the process of species extinction, without allowing the species any sufficient time to adapt to these changes. Many species are not able to cope up with these changes and thus, die. Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives. Put simply, reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in irregular or short supply. Loss of biodiversity undermines ecosystems' abilities to function effectively and efficiently and thus undermines nature's ability to support a healthy environment. This is particularly important in a changing climate in which loss of biodiversity reduces nature's resilience to change. Industrialization on a huge scale, harvesting natural resources leading to deforestation, mining, and other human contributions lead to habitat destruction. This deprives species of plants and animals of their natural habitat and perturbs the ecological balance. The rise in global temperature, sea level, and extreme weather events can cause habitat loss, changes in the timing of seasonal events, and an increase in disease outbreaks, which can lead to the extinction of species.

Biodiversity is crucially important to climate change for several reasons, and defining the biodiversity crisis solely as a loss of species is overly narrow and misses the broader implications of the issue. Here's why biodiversity is significant in the context of climate change and why the crisis goes beyond just species loss:

Dr Gia Bolkvadze thank you for your contribution to the discussion

The Earth's land and the ocean serve as natural carbon sinks, absorbing large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Conserving and restoring natural spaces, and the biodiversity they contain, is essential for limiting emissions and adapting to climate impacts. Biodiversity can support efforts to reduce the negative effects of climate change. Conserved or restored habitats can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus helping to address climate change by storing carbon.Biodiversity plays an important role in regulating the climate, thus making a key contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, climate change affects ecosystem dynamics and the distribution and abundance of species and habitats.Biodiversity supports food security and sustained livelihoods through overall genetic diversity. ​Genes regulate all biological processes on the planet and increase the ability of organisms to cope with environmental stressors. Biodiversity is about not just the wealth of nature, but also the health of nature. Loss of biodiversity undermines the ability of ecosystems to function effectively and efficiently and thus undermines nature's ability to support a healthy environment. Biodiversity loss refers to the decline or disappearance of biological diversity, understood as the variety of living things that inhabit the planet, its different levels of biological organization and their respective genetic variability, as well as the natural patterns present in ecosystems.The biodiversity crisis is not described as simply a loss of species because biodiversity is not only at the species level but also at the genetic and ecosystem levels. Loss of biodiversity undermines ecosystems' abilities to function effectively and efficiently and thus undermines nature's ability to support a healthy environment. This is particularly important in a changing climate in which loss of biodiversity reduces nature's resilience to change.Biodiversity, or the variety of all living things on our planet, has been declining at an alarming rate in recent years, mainly due to human activities, such as land use changes, pollution and climate change. Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives. Put simply, reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in irregular or short supply. Some of the major threats to biodiversity are population increase, deforestation, over exploitation of natural resources, etc. Loss of biodiversity may cause decline in plant production in an area, lowered resistance to environmental perturbations, and so on.