New Report Warns of Huge Forest CO2 Emissions

The part forests play in storing CO2 is “at risk of being lost entirely”, according to the warnings of a group of forestry scientists.

Climate change, the IUFRO (International Union of Forest Research Organisations) says, is placing more and more stress on forests and, should temperatures exceed those present prior to global industrialisation by two-and-a-half degrees, they could emit CO2 into the atmosphere in huge quantities.

Forests and Climate Change

A report on the subject of forests and climate change has been put together by 35 prominent forestry scientists, and was due to be put forward at the United Nations Forum on Forests as these words were typed (April 20th).  It has been claimed that this report – entitled ‘Adaption of Forests and People to Climate Change - A Global Assessment’ - takes an unprecedented look at the degree to which forests can adapt to a warmer world.

“We normally think of forests as putting the brakes on global warming”, the Finnish Forest Research Institute’s Professor Risto Seppala stated.

“But over the next few decades, damage induced by climate change could cause forests to release huge quantities of carbon and create a situation in which they do more to accelerate warming than to slow it down.”

While the scientific community has paid much attention to CO2 emissions from human activities like deforestation, those involved in the report call for a focus on the role of climate change, too.

Forest Carbon Sequestration

Carbon emissions from deforestation presently constitute approximately 20 per cent of the global total.  However, at the present time, the level of forest carbon sequestration means that they remain a greater source of carbon intake than of output.

This relationship though, according to the report, could alter in line with global warming, with the forests’ natural ability to act as carbon sinks in danger of being “...lost entirely if the Earth heats up by 2.5C or more.”

The report foresees the creation of a vicious, perpetual cycle with higher temperatures, sustained periods of drought, an influx of pests and other factors combining to conspire against the forests, which would release more carbon and trigger the sequence off again.

“Even if adaption measures are fully implemented, unmitigated climate change would - during the course of the current century - exceed the adaptive capacity of many forests”, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s Professor Andreas Fischlin, commented.

“The fact remains that the only way to ensure that forests do not suffer unprecedented harm is to achieve large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”