I can only wish for a holistic approach someday; but we certainly cannot wait until we know everything on all nature-related risks before we act on climate. Page 6 sur 13 B. What we don’t know yet Drawing a parallel with the progress made on climate, we face two significant challenges ahead for biodiversity issues: metrics and scenarios (“IPCC type”) and macroeconomics and finance (“NGFS type”). 1. Biodiversity metrics and scenarios Biodiversity – and even more so nature – is complex and multidimensional: for example, biodiversity measurement cannot be reduced to a single metric like the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and the associated rise in temperature for climate change. We still lack understanding on, and especially awareness of, this phenomenon. Thankfully, the IPBES, which we could describe as the IPCC equivalent for biodiversity, is advancing knowledge and raising awareness about biodiversity. It provides landmark assessments of biodiversity loss and ecosystem services, including work on scenarios that we could explore further as we aim for improved risk assessment by the financial sector, just like we did with IPCC scenarios.
We are facing an alarming loss of biodiversity We can no longer ignore the warnings of a “Silent Spring”.i We are currently facing a global change in fauna and flora: some are rarefying or disappearing, while others are now thriving in environments that were until recently not suited for them. The figures are quite telling: 25% of studied species are threatened with extinction; scientist are talking about an ongoing 6th mass extinction, the first one caused by humankind. Yet, biodiversity is key to the resilience of ecosystems, which provide unaccounted for but essential services that sustain life on our planet, what we call “ecosystem services”. To put it in economic terms, they include the provision of basic but essential goods such as food, wood, water, etc., but also regulation services such as climate regulation, water purification or pollination. The deterioration of nature through deforestation, plastic and chemical pollution and overconsumption obviously alters the provision of those services. Since  Page 2 sur 13 1970, 14 out of the 18 categories of ecosystem services have declined according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Some of these ecosystems are critical to human life and activity: pest and disease control is an alarming example, with scientists warning of an “Era of pandemics” if we do not tackle the biodiversity crisis.ii  2.