Regime interlinkages: Examining the connection between transnational climate change and biodiversity law

Across the globe, biodiversity has been declining at an alarming rate for several decades, mainly due to habitat loss, pollution and alien invasive species. Global climate change adds further significant threats to already vulnerable species of wild flora and fauna. At the same time, biodiversity plays an essential role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Healthy forests and other forms of vegetation, soils and oceans are indispensable in any climate change mitigation policy for their carbon uptake. The crossroads of biodiversity law and climate change law therefore provides an excellent case study to research regime interactions – with a potential for disruptive impacts -- and the growing need for transnational legal and regulatory orchestration in an era of globalized and systemic environmental risks. The chapter shows that current climate law and biodiversity law regimes at the international and the EU level are increasingly working together. Progress, however, is terribly slow and there are still areas where both regimes do not speak to each other or are in conflict. Faster and more intense forms of inter-regime collaborations and interactions are needed.