Remedy Climate Change Could Be Just As Impactful As Ending Oil Use
A new study suggests trying to stave off catastrophic climate change could be just as impactful as completely ending our reliance on oil as a source of fuel.
Tree planting, peatland protection, and better land use could deliver 37% of the greenhouse gas reductions humanity must achieve by 2030, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to the international team of scientists behind the study, natural climate solutions such as protecting peatlands that store carbon and improving how we manage soils and grasslands could be enough to meet 37 percent of the action needed by 2030 as mandated by the 2015 Paris agreement.
In fact, they say regreening the planet through such efforts would have the same effect on atmospheric carbon levels as if the entire world stopped burning oil.
Mark Tercek, a chief executive officer of The Nature Conservancy, which led the study, noted that “investing in nature, as well as in clean energy and clean transport” would contribute a lot to eliminate carbon emissions and other chemicals that cause the planet to warm up.
The study appears alongside warnings
that sudden jumps in forest and soil emissions could be triggered by a warming world, adding up to what InsideClimate News calls a “spiraling global warming feedback”. After the last El Niño set off a record increase in global CO2 levels, NASA satellite data traced the result to “three massive tropical forest regions, in different parts of the world, that each responded to the rising temperatures in a very different way.”“In the Amazon, El Niño clobbered photosynthesis,” said climate researcher Scott Denning at Colorado State University, as the rainforest stopped inhaling CO2 due to drought. In Africa’s tropical jungles and forests, “stuff just rotted faster” and drove up emissions, in response to record warmth and rain. In Indonesia, the hot, dry conditions led to epic forest and peat fires that released equally epic volumes of carbon dioxide and methane.
Earlier this month, meanwhile, the Washington Post reported on a 26-year study in a Massachusetts forest that documented carbon release from warming soils. “The study is one of the longest if not the longest climate change ecosystem experiment, beyond the one we are running in our own planet,” said Australian carbon cycle specialist Pep Canadell, who was not involved with the project.
“Starting in 1991, a team of researchers has been studying the same 18 plots of forest soil in the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts,” the Post explained. “Six of the plots are entirely undisturbed, representing the natural state of the forest floor; six are artificially heated through underground cables to 5°C degrees Celsius (9°F) above the normal temperature, and six are ‘disturbed,’ meaning that they contain heating cables, but the cables are not actually powered, so the temperature is not altered.” The hypothesis was that “warmer temperatures would lead microorganisms in the soil to become more active in breaking down plant matter and other materials. These microbes would then release more soil carbon into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide gas.”
Forests also have the greatest potential to cost-effectively reduce carbon emissions. This is because they absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, removing it from the atmosphere. The study focuses on three options for increasing the number and size of trees. Reforestation, avoiding forest loss, and better forestry practices could cost-effectively remove 7.0 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030, equivalent to taking 1.5 billion gasoline-burning cars off the roads.
“Today our impacts on the land cause a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mark Tercek. “The way we manage the lands in the future could deliver 37 percent of the solution to climate change. That is huge potential, so if we are serious about climate change, then we are going to have to get serious about investing in nature, as well as in clean energy and clean transport.”
To achieve greenhouse gas reductions, nations would need to engage in reforestation efforts, peatland and coastal wetland restoration, and the conversion of former agricultural land to forests, as well as protect existing forests and wetlands from future development.
These actions “also offer water filtration, flood buffering, soil health, biodiversity, and enhanced climate resilience,” the scientists wrote. “Regreening the planet through conservation, restoration, and improved land management is a necessary step for our transition to a carbon neutral global economy and a stable climate.”
