In December 2024, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released the Nexus Assessment, a landmark report addressing the links between biodiversity, water, food, health and climate. The Assessment was formally approved by representatives of 147 national governments during the 11th IPBES Plenary, held in Windhoek, Namibia.

The report marks the culmination of a three-year effort by 165 experts from 57 countries, aiming to bridge a critical gap in evidence-based global policy-making. More specifically, the Nexus Assessment is a response to the predominant silo mentality that underpins crisis management on Earth today. The report emphasises the need for worldwide issues concerning the environment, the economy and society to be regarded as interdependent processes forming part of a single complex socio-environmental system. Its authors maintain that only an integrated approach in considering these processes may yield effective solutions on the ground.

In its effort to determine where and how crises intersect, the Assessment centres its analysis on the acute biodiversity decline experienced ubiquitously in recent decades. The document thus sets out to demonstrate how indirect socioeconomic drivers, normally disregarded by environmental decision-makers, are responsible for the greatest amount of damage in this context. This is compounded by a widespread prioritisation of short-term economic returns over sustainable market practices that safeguard nature’s contribution to growth in the long run. An annual figure of at least 10 to 25 trillion U.S. dollars is cited as the unaccounted cost on the environment and human communities as a result of imprudent economic policies. Moreover, the report makes it clear that mankind is not experiencing the effects of this deterioration equally, with half of the planet’s population being particularly vulnerable to negative biodiversity trends.  

The Nexus Assessment outlines that a more thorough understanding of the interlinkages between human activity and nature can result in research and policy outcomes that can move life on Earth in a positive direction. This is confirmed by a substantial number of predictive studies that the team behind the document has utilised. Those informed scenarios support the view that partial synergies in this regard can still result in many of the highly undesirable outcomes that are to occur if no change is undertaken. In that sense, a nexus-oriented governance style that reflects the multitude of interlinkages between factors is singled out as the sole reliable option for global biodiversity loss to be efficiently counteracted.

The media release on the Assessment can be accessed here, while the summary for policy-makers can be found here.