The Cambridge Conservation Initiative reveals the factors that will pose the greatest threat to nature this year, be it in terms of global warming or greenhouse gas emissions
Every year since 2009, an international team of researchers known as the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) has come together to determine the greatest potential impact on the planet over the coming year, whether in terms of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions or biodiversity preservation. This year, 31 scientists, practitioners and decision-makers drew up an initial list of 96 environmental issues, which they then narrowed down to 15 to highlight the most pressing and impactful.
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Melting ice sheets top the list of threats to ecosystems, says the report, published in the journal Trends in Evolution and Ecology. “Recent studies suggest that reductions in water density caused by increased melting in the Antarctic and reduction in the concentration of salts may reduce abyssal overturning by 40 per cent by 2050. These changes reduce the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide,” the CCI scientists outline.
The report’s authors are also concerned about the massive decline of certain species, in particular sea urchin die-offs in the Caribbean and Mediterranean observed in 2022, which have “have highlighted potential ecosystem shifts in some of the most diverse seas across the world”. In the Caribbean long-spined sea urchin (diadema antillarum), mortality reached up to 99 per cent, a rate similar to the mass extinction of this species in 1983 and 1984, which led to the coral reefs being overwhelmed by algal blooms, notes the study.