Human impact on biodiversity has been pervasive since prehistoric times, but has recently accelerated, causing the loss of thousands of species and steep decline in the populations of those remaining. While many species have declined from habitat loss in the past, biodiversity scenario analyses suggest that climate change will soon become a dominant force shaping species extinction risk. The IUCN Red List is the most authoritative and comprehensive source of information to monitor species¿ extinction risk globally. The Red List influences policy, legislation, and management across the globe, and currently contains information on >130,000 species. Yet, the effect of climate change remains incompletely and inconsistently evaluated in Red List assessments, especially for less studied taxonomic groups. For example, 28% of all threatened and near threatened birds are listed as being at risk from climate change vs just 10% of reptiles (despite the latter group likely being at higher risk). Moreover, the variety of techniques currently available to estimate climate exposure might lead to contrasting results for the same species. Improving consistency in the estimation of risk from climate change, as part of IUCN Red List assessments, is critical to provide a comprehensive overview of species threats, which might otherwise result in an underestimation of extinction risk and bias in conservation efforts. The goal of the ClimExp project is to develop a simple standardised analytical infrastructure that allows Red List assessors to measure climate change exposure for species in a semi-automatic manner. Our main objective is to create a user-friendly App that allows estimation of climate change exposure under past, present, and future conditions, with fully customisable choice of temporal period and bioclimatic variables.
Climate change is predicted as the major force driving future species decline, and its impact on species redlisting cannot be neglected if we aim to effectively halt the global extinction crisis. The main goal of the ClimExp project is to create a user-friendly App that will serve two communities of users, who will benefit from improved measures of climate change exposure: 1) the Red List assessors who will use the tool to achieve more effective, efficient, and consistent assessment of extinction risk due to climate change; 2) the decision-makers (Red List end users) who will have improved Red List assessments to inform conservation priorities and action, to monitor conservation impact, and to inform policy and investment in conservation.
We expect this tool to be initially used by Amphibian, Mammal, and Bird assessors across the globe. The close collaboration in this project with the IUCN Climate Change Specialist Group and the institutions responsible for coordinating the global assessments of the above-mentioned groups will help engage with the Red List assessors effectively. We will adopt a two-way communication strategy, that will allow us to make our App available to assessors and get feedback from them to optimise the App to their needs.