The IPBES Biodiversity, Water, Nutrition, Health (and Climate) Nexus Assessment was officially approved by 147 countries on December 16, 2024. This milestone marks the culmination of an effort advancing the CGIAR initiative on NEXUS and, before that, the CGIAR research program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) has made significant contributions since 2019. The assessment focuses on more than 70 solutions available to policymakers, including managing ecosystem function in agricultural landscapes; reducing nutrient, plastic and pesticide pollution; and switching to a healthy diet. The authors emphasize that in this time of triple planetary crises – environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and health challenges – urgent and ambitious action is critical to implementing and scaling the proposed solutions.
In this blog, Dr. Fabrice DeClerckChief Science Officer at EAT and contributing author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), answers questions about the assessment and its importance.
What is IPBES and why is the IPBES Nexus Assessment important?
IPBES is the sister organization of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It focuses on the vital contributions that nature makes to humans, also known as ecosystem services. IPBES reports, involving 147 governments, are co-produced through collaboration between scientific experts and national governments. Like IPCC, IPBES represents one of the most direct ways for science to engage with policy.
What does the IPBES Nexus Assessment cover and how was it developed?
The IPBES Nexus Assessment covers the interactions between biodiversity, water, nutrition, health and climate. Many global assessments focus on describing the current status of these areas individually (e.g. nutrition only or biodiversity only). However, for the first time, the Nexus Assessment proposes a broad range of solutions whose impact has been assessed across all five areas.
The assessment consists of four main sections. The first chapter reminds us that we are in a polycrisis situation regarding the loss of biodiversity and its contribution to human well-being, climate and water regulation, food production and health. These challenges are interrelated and therefore solutions must also be found. The second chapter is an analysis of several global scenarios, confirming that “business as usual” poses significant challenges for all five nexus elements; that prioritizing one nexus element over another may provide some solutions, but in most cases complicates another element; And most importantly, Nexus solutions, in contrast, can offer options that, while involving some compromises, enable improvements in all five elements. The third chapter evaluates more than 70 solutions and finds that applying solutions in packages rather than individually results in significant efficiencies with significant cost reductions. For example, focusing agricultural policy on promoting healthy diets would allow agricultural subsidies to be reallocated to continue supporting farmers while reducing increasing public investment in healthcare. The final chapter presents an eight-step process for identifying and implementing nexus solutions, with a focus on adapting to local contexts and fostering greater collaboration.
What was the CGIAR contribution?
CGIAR played a critical role in the Nexus evaluation from the start. In 2019, when IPBES launched calls for ideas, WLE suggested that the IPBES Nexus Assessment should have a very strong focus on the links between biodiversity, nutrition and health. In this proposal, we have emphasized that how what food is produced and where it is produced have strong interactions with water and climate.
It was an honor to serve as coordinating lead author of the review alongside Edmundo Barrios, a former CGIAR scientist now working at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The five Nexus chapters were led by Mario Herrero, also a former CGIAR scientist.
Which integrated solutions are covered in the assessment?
While new technologies and innovations will be important, more immediate benefits and impact can be achieved through the more integrated application of existing solutions. Key sets of solutions covered by the assessment include: halting the conversion of remaining intact ecosystems – which fundamentally depends on a more productive agricultural sector; Restoration of degraded lands – including restoring productive potential; better management of ecological functions in agricultural landscapes through sustainable and ecological intensification (a main area of CGIAR's work); reducing nutrient and pesticide pollution from agriculture; and the shift to healthy eating, which is an opportunity for those of us working in the manufacturing sector to rethink which crops we focus on and how we can help make underconsumed healthy foods more available, affordable and desirable . The assessment also recognizes the importance of social sciences with gender-sensitive approaches, a greater focus on land ownership and inspiration from indigenous systems and local practices.
What does IPBES hope to achieve with the publication of the Nexus Assessment?
IPBES hopes to fundamentally change the narrative of biodiversity – from biodiversity as something to be conserved in protected areas to biodiversity as the structure of life – and emphasizes that living in harmony with nature is a critical goal that we everyone must strive for. Furthermore, with this assessment, IPBES highlights the need for cross-sector collaboration and the urgent need to move from merely describing challenges to actively understanding, celebrating and scaling solutions. This must happen urgently and at a pace and scale commensurate with the scale and severity of the multiple crises we face.
Further information can be found in the IPBES media release: https://www.ipbes.net/node/85582
Cover photo: Participants gather for the IPBES Nexus Assessment media presentation on December 17, 2024. Photo by IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth.