It called for a fundamental redressing of humanity's demands and nature's supply, warning that biodiversity is intricately linked with human well-being and health.
Synopsis
The economic benefits of biodiversity had historically been missed from growth models, distorting the value of capital accumulation and leaving crucial conservation programmes chronically underfunded, said the review.
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Two of the major challenges currently facing humankind climate change and Covid both illustrate the need to link economics with the environment.
Paris: Humanity s unbridled growth in recent decades has come at a devastating cost to nature according a wide-ranging international review on the vital economic role played by our living planet.
The 600-page rundown of scientific material commissioned by the British government highlighted the precarious state of biodiversity and warned that only a sea change in how countries power economic growth could prevent catastrophic impacts for nature, and humanity.
A Maltese scientist is among the leaders of a study that has revealed how the continental United States, Europe and Africa are drifting apart.
Matthew Agius was able to prove that the earth s tectonic plates do not just sink downward due to gravity but are also being pushed upward by material and debris due to heat activity.
This evidence of this upwelling from deep beneath mid-ocean ridges are pushing the American, European and African plates further apart from each other.
Until now, conventional wisdom was that the spreading of plates is normally driven by distant gravity forces as denser parts of the plates sink back into the Earth.
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“The idea that the festivals can’t go ahead and be socially-distanced is inaccurate,” she told the committee.
“We can absolutely adapt our programming, put infrastructure in place, [and] change the way that we do things, to enable something to happen with social distancing in place,” she added, highlighting the Just So festival in Cheshire and South Derbyshire’s Timber event as examples of events that could go ahead.
Glastonbury Festival in 2019 (Picture: Getty)
Despite this positivity, Notting Hill Carnival organiser Matthew Phillip said the event could only return once no social distancing was possible.
“It would be very difficult to hold Carnival in its traditional format on the streets with social distancing in place,” he said, adding that cancelling the 2021 event would “be devastating for a second year in a row”. The 2020 carnival was the first time the event didn’t take place in over 50 years.