Climate change and its enormous impacts on global biodiversity

Abstract

Biodiversity is being destroyed by human at a rate unprecedented in history. Since the industrial revolution, human activities have increasingly destroyed and degraded forests, grasslands, wetlands and other important ecosystems, threatening human well-being. About 75% of the earth’s ice-free land surface has already been significantly altered, most of the oceans are polluted and more than 85% of the area of wetlands has been lost, the report showed. Average global temperature has increased by 0.74°C in last 100 years, rainfall patterns have changed and the frequency of events also increased. Change in climate has consequences on the biophysical environment such as changes seasons, glacial retreat, decrease in Arctic sea ice extent and a rise in sea level. These changes have impact on biodiversity, in term of phenology, distribution and populations, and ecosystem level in terms of distribution, composition and function. This chapter reviews the information about the importance of biodiversity, threats to biodiversity, climate change and its impact on biodiversity and international approaches towards mitigating the effect of climate change.