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Stephanie Meeks, Acting President and CEO of The Nature Conservancy. Go Deeper For more information on The Nature Conservancy’s involvement with the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, please see our joint press release on the expansion of the coalition. We Want to Hear from You Tell us what you think about our climate change work. What national or international policies should be implemented to fight climate change?

The Nature Conservancy has joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a highly influential, relatively new alliance of more than two dozen major companies and environmental and conservation organizations calling for significant, mandatory reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Our scientists tell us that climate change will be the biggest threat to our mission of protecting nature and to the many investments in lands and waters we have made over the past 60 years. The Nature Conservancy is joining USCAP to ensure that a strong policy framework is developed to address this critical challenge. We also plan to shine a spotlight on the need to reduce emissions through the protection and restoration of forests and grasslands, which hold or sequester vast amounts of carbon, and on strategies to help ecosystems and wildlife adapt to an already changing planet.

The forest sector contributes approximately 20 to 25 percent of global emissions. A number of recent assessments including the Stern Review and the most recent assessment from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that the forest sector has the potential to make cost-effective contributions to keeping greenhouse gas concentrations within the range of 450-550 ppm CO2-equivalent, a range that is supported by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and that encompasses the recommendations of most environmental groups and many leading companies.

From the United States to China to Bolivia, The Nature Conservancy is a world leader in developing projects that reduce carbon dioxide emissions through forest protection and restoration. Through these projects the Conservancy is carefully measuring and monitoring carbon storage and informing policy frameworks that support protection of carbon in forests around the world.

IPCC reports earlier this year also detailed changes in the natural world that will occur if action isn't taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including placing up to 30 percent of species at increased risk of extinction with a global temperature increase of more than 1.5° - 2.5° C. At the higher temperature increases that are likely with greater emissions, an even greater number of species may become extinct. These changes have serious implications for plant and animal life, but also for people, fisheries, timber harvests, grazing, and protected areas which all depend on ecological processes that are being fundamentally altered as a result of climate change.

The natural world as we know it has started to change. Programs and funding to develop and implement successful adaptation strategies will be vital to protect the natural assets and nature reserves that wildlife, people and natural resource-based industries depend on. Through our engagement with USCAP, we hope to raise attention to this important aspect of a successful climate change framework.

Conservancy scientists are already working to anticipate these changes and develop strategies that help wildlife and ecosystems adapt to a changing world. In the Albemarle Sound of North Carolina, the Conservancy is developing restoration projects that would help protect the shoreline from increased erosion and inundation caused by rising sea levels. In New Mexico, the Conservancy is conducting a statewide analysis to identify species and other natural resources at risk due to climate change. The study will also propose measures that land and water managers can take to abate climate-related threats to plants, animals and natural processes.

We look forward to working with all the members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and others to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect the health of the natural systems upon which all life depends.

 

Stephanie Meeks
Acting President and CEO
The Nature Conservancy

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Hermes Justiniano/TNC (Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project); Photo © Mark Godfrey/TNC (Steve McCormick, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy).