In their 2021 article, Tyler Eddy and several other Nereus members give yet another reason for the urgent need to meet climate change emission targets. Specifically, to reduce stress on coral reefs and restore their capacity to provide essential ecosystem services upon which millions of people rely on worldwide.
It is well known that coral reefs are one of the ecosystems that are facing radical changes due to climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. These changes consequently impact all of the benefits and services coral reefs can give. However, the cumulative effect of these impacts on coral reef ecosystem services had not yet been quantified.
The authors of this article show that the well-being of human communities that rely on coral reef ecosystem services worldwide is in jeopardy. What they did was quantify the loss of these ecosystem services providing unarguable figures and facts to highlight the need for more urgent action and mobilization in order to achieve climate change emission targets.
The above summary was adapted from the original article.
