Climate change is a fundamental threat to biodiversity. Climate mitigation in general, and Negative-Emission Technologies (nets) in particular, have the potential to benefit biodiversity by reducing climate impacts. Domestic laws could help to ensure that nets have benefits for biodiversity adaptation to climate change (e.g. reducing land clearing and habitat loss and facilitating habitat restoration, corridors for species’ migration, and broader ecological resilience). Domestic laws will also need to govern trade-offs between nets and biodiversity adaptation (e.g. increased competition for land and landscape-scale fragmentation by new industrial developments and linear infrastructure). We argue that domestic laws should be used to maximize the benefits of nets while minimizing trade-offs for biodiversity. These laws should ensure that trade-offs are, at the very least, explicit and transparent, both in terms of their implications for current biodiversity and in the context of an acceleration of climate-driven biodiversity decline.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	biodiversity, conservation, adaptation, cabron dioxide removal, negative emissions
Research Division:	Law and Legal Studies
Research Group:	Environmental and resources law
Research Field:	Environmental law
Objective Division:	Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards
Objective Group:	Environmental policy, legislation and standards
Objective Field:	Environmental policy, legislation and standards not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	McCormack, PC (Ms Phillipa McCormack)
UTAS Author:	McDonald, J (Professor Jan McDonald)
ID Code:	139783
Year Published:	2020
Deposited By:	Law
Deposited On:	2020-07-03
Last Modified:	2020-08-12
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