{"id":34657,"date":"2025-03-27T16:16:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=34657"},"modified":"2025-03-27T16:17:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:17:56","slug":"threat-to-the-sustainability-of-forests-for-the-economic-viability-of-climate-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/03\/27\/threat-to-the-sustainability-of-forests-for-the-economic-viability-of-climate-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Threatening the sustainability of forests for the economic viability of climate goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

This study<\/span><\/a> deals with the often overlooked vulnerability of carbon stored in forests<\/strong> due to climate change and human activity and its impact on achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. The study highlights that current climate change mitigation strategies rely too heavily on increasing carbon storage and sequestration in forests worldwide.<\/p>\n

The authors point out that Terrestrial carbon sequestration is critical for climate change mitigation<\/strong>, removes more than 13 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere annually, equivalent to a third of all anthropogenic emissions. Forests store most of this sequestered carbon, accounting for two thirds, or 7.8 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. Scenarios limiting warming well below 2\u00b0C require additional carbon dioxide removals (CDRs), with Forest restoration is a leading method for providing low-cost and large-scale CDR<\/strong> with existing technology.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, forests are vulnerable to environmental changes and direct human activities, such as deforestation and degradation<\/strong>, which calls into question the permanence of stored carbon. The study identifies three main risks: the permanence of existing forest carbon stocks, the continued removal of a significant portion of anthropogenic emissions by the atmosphere, and the large-scale increase in global forest carbon stocks through afforestation and reforestation (A\/R).<\/p>\n

Research suggests that models informing and simulating current mitigation pathways may be overly optimistic<\/strong> regarding future carbon storage in forests in three key aspects: neglecting natural disturbances (wind, pests, drought, diseases), overestimating the positive impact of indirect human disturbances (higher temperatures and CO2 fertilization), and underestimating direct human disturbances (deforestation and degradation). The authors argue that integrated assessment models (IAM)<\/strong> they may have overestimated the remaining carbon budgets by neglecting these significant perturbations.<\/p>\n

The study examines how neglecting significant forest disturbances affects mitigation pathways and assesses the consequences of delayed action using the REMIND-MAgPIE model. The results show that accelerated decarbonization could meet climate goals despite carbon losses in forests due to disturbances<\/strong>However, Postponing forest carbon loss measures by just five years consistently doubles the additional costs and efforts to mitigate climate change<\/strong> in all key sectors, regardless of the assessed levels of forest disturbance. In addition, these are short-sighted responses to forest carbon loss as or even more challenging than immediate responses to double the rate of forest disturbance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The study compares far-sighted political scenario<\/strong> with immediate measures with myopic reaction<\/strong> with a five-year delay. Despite the loss of carbon in forests, the land sector remains a net carbon sink until 2055. Foresight measures minimize later necessary adjustments<\/strong>, while short-sighted policy requires much higher CO2 prices<\/strong> to achieve the carbon budget.<\/p>\n

The main findings include that in the case of myopic reaction:<\/p>\n