Africa: Nature Can Help Us Fight Climate Change – If We Hurry
Nature is always the first to showcase the effects of a warming planet, but it also holds the answer to staying – and repelling – this seemingly unstoppable march to climate apocalypse
Andrew Steer is chief executive of the World Resources Institute and Patrick Verkooijen is CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation. They are the Managing Partners of the Global Commission on Adaptation.
The window of opportunity to harness nature’s own power to protect us from climate change is closing swiftly. As the Amazon burns, coral reefs die and polar ice caps melt, critical ecosystems are steadily approaching a tipping point where they can no longer restore and repair themselves.
Fewer natural buffers, and rising seas from melted ice, will create a new order – one where fires, droughts and floods will be even more frequent and powerful, and the loss to lives and livelihoods more devastating.
Nature is always the first to showcase the effects of a warming planet, but it also holds the answer to staying – and repelling – this seemingly unstoppable march to climate apocalypse.