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Why This Matters: The world’s ecosystems store half of humanity’s annual carbon emissions, but they’re deteriorating rapidly. Despite COVID-19 causing a dip in emissions, deforestation rose by 7%. Parts of the Amazon rainforest are now emitting more carbon than they sequester. Siberian forests, which historically removed 1.7 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year, are rapidly losing that ability due to massive wildfires. And the oceans — the world’s largest and most crucial carbon sinks — are showing signs of increasing stratification which prevents effective carbon sequestration. Governments must take action to protect 30% of lands and waters by 2030, but to do so, they must first see the value of these systems and what humanity would be without them.
Alternate Outcomes
Less than 25% of Earth’s land area remains unaffected by humans, and only 5% of the oceans have been left untouched. “Troublingly, the biosphere’s natural balance is slowly succumbing to human pressures and climate change impacts,” said study co-author Johan Rockström, chief scientist at CI and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Humanity needs to act now — as stewards of nature — to restore and protect the vast ecosystems that halve our carbon emissions each year. Otherwise, we will not meet the critical benchmarks for the coming decade, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.”
Rockström and his colleagues say halving emissions each decade, shifting forestry and agriculture away from destructive methods, and restoring and expanding carbon sinks, could reduce warming by 0.3 degrees Celsius by 2100. Additionally, the study’s authors highlight the need for collaboration between governments and private sectors to establish emissions targets and working with Indigenous communities to protect lands and waters.
“We already have the tools we need to help prevent a climate crisis — and nature provides many of them,” said Dave Hole, a co-author of the paper and vice president of Global Solutions at Conservation International’s Moore Center for Science. “Our findings highlight the importance of ‘natural climate solutions’ — actions to conserve, sustainably manage and restore the biosphere.”
By WW0 Staff For the United States, the post-Trump, pre-COP26 road to Glasgow has been paved with ambition and humility. In a major speech, the President’s Envoy, John Kerry, previewed the results of his climate diplomacy before heading into two weeks of intense deliberations of world leaders. Speaking at the London School of Economics — […]
Next week, the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow will draw hundreds of world leaders to Glasgow to determine the path forward five years after the Paris Climate Agreement (for a primer, read this) as new science underscores the urgency. The conference aims to squeeze countries to strengthen the commitments they’ve made towards securing global net-zero […]
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor In a report released last week, the Department of Defense (DOD) confirmed that existing risks and security challenges in the US are being made worse due to “increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change. Now, the Pentagon is […]
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