Laying tracks while the train moves

Why we can't wait for perfect information to save the world

Shaped by forces beyond our control, but still here. Photo: J. Tonkin.

I had a migraine on Friday — it was a real doozy. They always seem to strike at the worst possible moment. I’d lined up a series of work tasks and in an instant my plans had derailed. This meant I’d have to allocate time over the weekend to prepare for Monday. As a family man I despise working on weekends and try to avoid it at all costs.

I’ve still not managed to identify the trigger of my migraines but I’ve been getting them for years. My wife is convinced they are stress related. Maybe she’s right (she tends to be but don’t tell her I said so). The constant pull to do more, be more. But maybe it’s just from caring too much.

Because I do care. I care a lot. I care about the world my kids are inheriting.

I see a constant barrage of information. I myself contribute to this constant barrage. It’s full of warnings. Hell, it’s no longer warnings. It’s documenting what’s happening. The global temperature tipping over 1.5, the loss of species after species, the reshuffling of ecological communities, the failures of crops, the extreme floods killing people and costing us billions.

Despite this, we plod on. Well plod is probably not the right word. We storm onwards into whole new agendas, distractions, crises. Agendas that set whatever progress we had made back 50 or 100 years. Countries we used to trust are now places we’re scared to visit. Ideas we thought were buried are now back with a vengeance. It’s setback after setback.

And yet it’s not all setbacks. There’s progress amidst setbacks.

Beavers are returning to the UK. Dams are being demolished and rivers are running free. Clean energy continues to scale. Even public consciousness is shifting; not fast enough but it is shifting.

This duality — this progress amidst setbacks, this hope and despair — can take an emotional toll. Both as a reader, but also for someone who writes about these things frequently. It’s particularly hard hitting when your work involves watching it unfold in real time. As a researcher, I feel like I have spent a fair chunk of my career documenting the decline of biodiversity. But I know that’s not the whole truth. My research has helped uncover solutions. Ideas that find their way into policy. Ideas that change something on the ground. And to shape the next generation of environmental leaders. These are the good moments.

Still, it takes a toll. There’s an emotional weight to ecological grief. And I worry at times that I’m responsible for transmitting it for others to experience. Perhaps that constant flow of data, forecasts, negative information actually desensitises us. Whether people, whether I, have started to go numb.

But the answer can’t be to just switch off. Nor can it be to sugar-coat the state of the world. A balance is needed. Brutal honesty about the depth of the hole, but also genuine hope for how we can dig our way out.

So what do we do with all this weight? We can turn toward systems. The global frameworks and targets that aim to fix the mess. They're imperfect, often slow, sometimes frustrating. But they’re also one of the few ways we’ve got to make positive change happen at scale.

Which brings me to one of the most promising developments in recent years: the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

The GBF is the most ambitious global biodiversity policy document we’ve ever had. It sets out an “ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050.” It is built around a theory of change designed to guide transformative change in global, regional, and national policies and actions, recognising the need for urgent, coordinated policy action and implementation. The GBF recognises that this transformative change is not just technical or ecological, but requires shifts in values, beliefs, and behaviours.

With it are four goals for 2050 (thematically: A. Protect and restore; B. Prosper with nature; C. Share benefits fairly; D. Invest and collaborate), and 23 targets for 2030. I’m sure many of you have heard of 30x30 — well, this is where it comes from, but it’s just one of the 23 targets (Target 3: Conserve 30% of land, waters and seas). The targets are grouped into three key areas: 1. reducing threats to biodiversity, 2. meeting people’s needs through sustainable use and benefit-sharing, and 3. tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming. The GBF is a massive global effort to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. The 2050 vision and 2030 mission are as follows:

The vision of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is a world of living in harmony with nature where “by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.”

The mission of the Framework for the period up to 2030, towards the 2050 vision is: To take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity and by ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources, while providing the necessary means of implementation.

But as you might expect by the tone of this essay, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows according to a new analysis of its monitoring framework.

This analysis of the system developed to help countries track whether they are actually making progress revealed that there are many things that aren’t even being tracked.

Even in the best-case scenario, where countries report on all required, optional, and disaggregated indicators, 12% of the GBF’s goals and targets still can’t be tracked because of a lack of indicators. The reality is likely worse than that, particularly in the short term — it’s unlikely that level of ambition and coordination is going to play out everywhere. More likely is that countries stick to the basic required indicators. In such cases, the framework currently covers somewhere between 19 and 40% of the elements in the GBF’s goals and targets. So, potentially over 80% of this landmark framework may go largely unmonitored.

Unsurprisingly, the conservation and sustainable use goals are better covered than those focused on benefit-sharing and resourcing. The latter being almost completely uncovered by the current indicators — in many cases, such indicators are still under development.

As is a perennial problem in biodiversity and conservation, data availability and methodological readiness are major constraints on the monitoring of progress towards the targets. So a key recommendation of the authors, which I support fully, is to invest in national monitoring systems and data infrastructure to enable better tracking of targets.

Despite the major gaps the study identified, much progress has been made. The monitoring framework itself is a big step forward, with large quantities of data, indicators, and knowledge ready to implement the framework. But at the end of the day, the effectiveness of the GBF depends on the ambition and capacity of countries to implement it. Without buy-in, there will always be major gaps.

And that, to me, captures the juxtaposition of this moment. We’ve never had more knowledge, data, ambition. And yet, we’re laying the tracks with the train already moving.

But that’s OK.

We can’t afford to wait for the perfect solution, the perfect science. We need to act with urgency. To act upon imperfect information. There’s a whole science around this — decision making under uncertainty. How do we move forward when we lack information, when there’s urgency, when indicators are missing? If you’ve read my work for a while, you’ll realise I think about this a lot. How we need to act with urgency, but also need to think long term.

Real change requires policy landscapes that are willing to make room for action under uncertainty. If there’s ever been a moment that requires a willingness to act despite gaps, as well as to invest in closing the gaps over time, it’s now.

We don’t get to pause the extinctions, extreme events, water shortages — not while we wait for perfect information. We need to keep laying the train tracks even as we hurtle forward.

The question… the only question… is whether we’re moving fast enough, and boldly enough, to make a difference.

This is the weight I carry in my work. Apparently in my head and my body too.

We can’t afford to sit on our hands and let these things unfold. As the Manic Street Preachers warned: "If you tolerate this, then your children will be next."

So let’s just keep moving.