The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity, the international treaties charged with solving two of the biggest problems of the 21st century, were both due to hold make-or-break meetings in 2020.

To mark World Environment Day on 5 June, the Commonwealth Academies released a statement on climate change, biodiversity and sustainable energy.

The statement stressed the grave risks to people and nature of allowing the global climate to warm at its current rate and draws attention to the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss.

They are not without impacts on biodiversity, but the magnitude of those impacts is much less than the effects of climate change, driven by fossil fuels and land use change.

That is the lesson we need to apply to the much more life-threatening, and just as urgent, challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.