Climate Change, Biodiversity at the Top of the Political Agenda

Climate change has been demonstrated to be one of the major driving forces behind the unprecedented loss of biodiversity. On May 22, 2007, the international community will celebrate the International Day for Biodiversity under the theme “biodiversity and climate change”.

Ministers of the environment of the G8+5 at their historic meeting held in Potsdam, Germany, from 15 to 17 March 2007, acknowledged that biodiversity and climate are intertwined, and that more efforts are needed to coherently address biodiversity and climate change issues together. For the first time in the history of the G8, their ministers of the environment with their partners from five mega-diverse countries considered and supported a plan – the Potsdam Initiative – Biological Diversity 2010 – that revolves around ten concrete activities to help achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss.

To read more: http://www.biodiv.org/doc/press/2007/pr-2007-04-13-potsdam-en.doc.