Research led by Alex Pigot has contributed to a major UNESCO report assessing the impacts of climate change on globally biodiversity sites, including World Heritage sites, Biosphere Reserves, and Global Geoparks.
Working as technical contributors, the team applied advanced ecological models (Pigot et al., 2023) to project where rising temperatures could exceed the conditions species can tolerate. The analysis identifies sites at risk of losing substantial proportions of their biodiversity as warming intensifies.
Covering more than 2,000 sites worldwide, the study shows that climate risk is projected to increase at an accelerating rate with global warming. The findings are featured in the report’s biodiversity section, “Approaching Critical Tipping Points” (p.40).
The report also highlights a key message: every 1°C of warming avoided could halve the number of sites facing major disruption by 2100.
Dr Alex Pigot said:
“By combining large-scale biodiversity data with climate projections, we can identify where species are most at risk from rising temperatures. Our findings show that climate change is likely to drive substantial losses of biodiversity across many of the world’s most important conservation sites, but also that reducing warming can significantly limit these impacts.”
The full report is available here:
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000397874
Links: