Climate change threatens iconic wildlife like the tigers of Sundarbans Pacific Press/Alamy

IF WE don’t stop climate change, half the animals and plants in the world’s wildlife havens will be gone by 2100. That’s according to a study gauging what will happen to 80,000 species in 35 of the most wildlife-rich areas, including the Amazon rainforest and the Galapagos Islands.

If no action is taken, the ensuing 4.5°C rise in global temperatures means the Amazon would lose 69 per cent, and Madagascar 60 per cent, of its plant species (Climatic Change, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-128-2158-6).

Snow leopards may lose 20 per cent of their habitat, and rising seas could swamp 96 per cent of Sundarbans tigers’ Bangladeshi breeding grounds.


But if we limit global warming over the next century to 2°C – the target of the 2015 Paris Agreement – only 25 per cent of the species will be lost.

“We can greatly reduce the impacts,” says Rachel Warren of the University of East Anglia, UK. She says we can cut losses to 20 per cent by also helping species move by creating wildlife corridors.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Climate threatens iconic wildlife”