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Next month's major UN Climate Conference in Glasgow is called COP26 - a Conference of the Parties. Another UN Conference of the Parties begins today in China. This one won't focus on how to keep the Earth's temperature as low as possible, but on how to keep its habitats as varied as possible, in the Global Biodiversity Conference. A new assessment by scientists at London's Natural History Museum has found that plant and animal life is disappearing at  levels well below what it calls a ‘safe limit for humanity’. According to the Global Biodiversity Intactness Index, the earth's biodiversity is 75 percent of pre-industrial levels.

Professor Andy Purvis, Research Leader at the Natural History Museum, explains that a country's biodivesity index below 90 percent is considered unsafe, and that this can can disrupt supply chains, leading to shortages for people buying in their agricultural commodies, and "profound difficulties" for peope who rely on these. He says he'd like to see a move towards global regulation for net zero biodiversity in a similar way we are starting to see for emissions.

"Biodiversity isn't just beautiful species, it's actually the foundation that society is built."

Photo: Wild red-eyed tree frog in Costa Rica Credit: Getty Images

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