Report: 33 key eco areas threatened by global warming

Paris: Global warming could place 25% to 50% of species in the Amazon, Madagascar and other biodiverse areas at risk of localised extinction within decades, a report said.

The lower projection is based on a mercury rise of 2°C over pre-Industrial Revolution levels – the warming limit the world’s nations agreed on in 2015.

The highest is for out-of-control warming of 4.5°C.

“Global biodiversity will suffer terribly over the next century unless we do everything we can,” said conservation group WWF, which commissioned the analysis published in science journal Climatic Change.

“We must keep average global temperatures down to the absolute minimum.”

Yesterday’s report focused on 33 so-called “Priority Places” which host some of the world’s richest and most unusual terrestrial species, including iconic, endangered, or endemic plants and animals.

They include southern Chile, the eastern Himalayas, South Africa’s unique Fynbos ecoregion, Borneo, Sumatra, the Namibian desert, West Africa, south-west Australia, coastal east Africa, and southern Africa’s Miombo Woodlands, home to African wild dogs.

The team looked at the impact of climate change on nearly 80,000 terrestrial plant, mammal, bird, amphibian, and reptile species.

At warming of 4.5°C, based on a “business-as-usual” scenario of no emissions cuts, the Amazon could risk the local extinction of 69% of its plant species.

The Miombo Woodlands risks losing 90% of its amphibians, 86% of birds, and 80% of mammals, according to the report.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries made voluntary pledges to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas.

But even if those pledges are met, scientists predict warming over 3°C, a recipe for disastrous climate change-triggered sea level rises, superstorms, floods, and droughts.

Warming of 3.2°C would place about 37% of species in Priority Places at risk of local extinction, said a WWF statement.

Extinction is not simply about the disappearance of species, said the WWF, “but about profound changes to ecosystems that provide vital services to hundreds of millions of people.”