The current climate and nature crisis is not only an environmental issue, but an economic, development, security, social, moral and ethical issue too. Our world’s most vulnerable people, places and wildlife — often those least responsible — are at greatest risk, and already suffering.

Having just spent the past week at the Blue Earth Summit here in Bristol, if one thing is clear, it’s that we’re placing too much pressure on the natural world, driving an escalating nature crisis which, in turn, is undermining its ability to provide crucial services, including climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Our destruction of nature is also increasing our vulnerability to pandemics, while placing the most vulnerable at the greatest risk.

But…we have the solutions to address it. We know that the health of our planet is declining, and we know why. We also know that we have the knowledge and means to address climate change and biodiversity loss. So there are things we can do.

1. Implement transformational, game-changing shifts that can convert pledges and promises into practice.
2. Follow-up on the landmark recognition by the UN General Assembly of Human Rights in July of this year, that climate breakdown, nature loss, pollution and pandemics are human rights crises.
3. Introduce system-wide changes that re-assess how we produce and consume, the technology we use, and our economic and financial systems.
4. Re-define how we value nature — not only in pricing ecosystem services to the economic system but also in terms of the value of nature in itself.

We have the capabilities to do it, and the knowledge of how.

You can read more about the Living Planet Report 2022 over at WWF.