Here’s Why Climate Change Gets The Spotlight But Biodiversity Doesn’t

The natural world works in a system of intricate inter-species balance. As species start disappearing, the system stops working and this imposes severe costs on ecosystems and human beings. As in climate change, individual action will not address species loss. Yet, individual actors incur private costs when they act unilaterally. If I protect my forests, I lose revenue from selling lumber and planting crops, such as soybeans, on the cleared land.

Consider climate change. Climate advocates have focused on carbon dioxide as the main culprit, although other gases, such as methane, are also involved. Activists have succeeded in large-scale mobilization against fossil fuels, be it through climate strikes and protests, divestment campaigns, ESG movement, or throwing tomato soup on museum paintings.

Biodiversity activists could argue for more aggressive targets for old-growth forests, especially in sensitive eco-regions. Alongside, in terms of policy instruments, akin to climate border taxes, they could demand international sanctions on trade in commodities that are grown or extracted from cleared forest land, such as the EU palm oil ban.

Social movements find it easier to mobilize the public when they can present a stark image of the problem and point to the villain causing it. Cleared Amazon forests could become the face of the biodiversity crisis, the way chimneys or tailpipes often depict the climate crisis. Moreover, popular mobilization also require a specific target, the villain, on which the public can focus its attention. Think of the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign or the divestment movement.

The biodiversity movement should learn from the mistakes of the climate movement as well. Specifically, the climate movement was late in addressing the issue of “”. This is a politically sensitive subject because decarbonization imposes costs on communities dependent on the fossil fuel economy. Just transition allows these communities to adapt to a post-carbon economy with minimal economic disruption.

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