Green
The Human Impact on the World’s Forests
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Source: Global forest Watch
Snapshot of the World’s Forests
View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.
Forests cover over 30% of the world’s land, but human activity is chipping away at the tree line.
At the outset of the 20th century, there was approximately 31 million square miles (50 million square km) of forest around the world. Today, that number has shrunk to less than 25 million square miles (40 million square km). Much of this decline can be attributed to expanding agricultural land use and increasing demand for wood and paper products.
Source: World Bank
The growth and decline of forest cover is hardly uniform. Deserts, farmland, and urban areas ebb and flow around the world, and while some countries are rapidly removing trees from their ecosystem, others are seeing increases in their forest cover.
Receding Leaf Line
Since 1990, global forested area has shrunk by 2 million square miles (3.1 million square km), with many of those losses occurring in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Amazon Rainforest, one of the most important carbon sinks on the planet, has faced intense pressure from human activity over the last few decades. Brazil’s expanding network of roads has been critical for economic development, but the landscape often pays the price as the country increases its GDP per capita.
Rainforest turns to farmland in Brazil’s Rondônia state: 1984–2016
Across the Atlantic Ocean, Africa is grappling with deforestation.
West Africa, for example, has lost a shocking 90% of its forest cover over the last century – in a number of countries, all of the forest outside of protected areas has been logged, while illegal logging threatens parks and reserves.
If nothing is done, we may lose everything.
– Abraham Baffoe, Africa regional director at Proforest
Forest Renewal
Images of slash-and-burn land clearing and denuded hillsides grab the headlines, however, there are a few places in the world where forests are expanding.
Europe, in particular, has seen widespread regeneration of forests over the past century.
Source: Wageningen
China is another, perhaps surprising, place where there have been big increases in forested areas.
Each year, dust storms blowing in from the expanding Gobi Desert displace as much as 800 square miles (2,000 square km) of topsoil and damage crops adjacent to the expanding desert. In response, the government created the Three-North Shelterbelt Program, which they hope will halt desertification. Thousands of miles of newly-planted vegetation will act like a wall, containing the spread of the Gobi Desert.
The Big Picture
Activities that lead to deforestation differ from region to region, but they’re always economic in nature. Palm oil, logging, raising cattle, and even charcoal production are all ways people can pull themselves out of poverty in developing countries.
The good news is that as per capita incomes in developing countries continue to rise, pressure on forests should lessen.
This theory is best visualized by Kuznets Curve, which demonstrates a link between economic development and environmental degradation.
Click here to view the full sized version.
In regions with lax enforcement, corruption, and a large population of people living below the poverty line, deforestation could remain a problem until economic conditions improve. Thankfully, the five countries with the most forest cover – Russia, Brazil, Canada, U.S., and China – are on or are moving towards a more favorable side of the curve.
Another bright spot in this story is that governments are increasingly protecting habitat in the form of nature reserves and national parks. Since 1990, the amount of nationally protected land in the world has nearly doubled.
Environment
How Carbon Dioxide Removal is Critical to a Net-Zero Future
Here’s how carbon dioxide removal methods could help us meet net-zero targets and and stabilize the climate.
How Carbon Dioxide Removal is Critical to a Net-Zero Future
Meeting the Paris Agreement temperature goals and avoiding the worst consequences of a warming world requires first and foremost emission reductions, but also the ongoing direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
We’ve partnered with Carbon Streaming to take a deep look at carbon dioxide removal methods, and the role that they could play in a net-zero future.
What is Carbon Dioxide Removal?
Carbon Dioxide Removal, or CDR, is the direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and its durable storage in geological, terrestrial, or ocean reservoirs, or in products.
And according to the UN Environment Programme, all least-cost pathways to net zero that are consistent with the Paris Agreement have some role for CDR. In a 1.5°C scenario, in addition to emissions reductions, CDR will need to pull an estimated 3.8 GtCO2e p.a. out of the atmosphere by 2035 and 9.2 GtCO2e p.a. by 2050.
The ‘net’ in net zero is an important quantifier here, because there will be some sectors that can’t decarbonize, especially in the near term. This includes things like shipping and concrete production, where there are limited commercially viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
Not All CDR is Created Equal
There are a whole host of proposed ways for removing CO2 from the atmosphere at scale, which can be divided into land-based and novel methods, and each with their own pros and cons.
Land-based methods, like afforestation and reforestation and soil carbon sequestration, tend to be the cheapest options, but don’t tend to store the carbon for very long—just decades to centuries.
In fact, afforestation and reforestation—basically planting lots of trees—is already being done around the world and in 2020, was responsible for removing around 2 GtCO2e. And while it is tempting to think that we can plant our way out of climate change, think that the U.S. would need to plant a forest the size of New Mexico every year to cancel out their emissions.
On the other hand, novel methods like enhanced weathering and direct air carbon capture and storage, because they store carbon in minerals and geological reservoirs, can keep carbon sequestered for tens of thousand years or longer. The trade off is that these methods can be very expensive—between $100-500 and north of $800 per metric ton.
CDR Has a Critical Role to Play
In the end, there is no silver bullet, and given that 2023 was the hottest year on record—1.45°C above pre-industrial levels—it’s likely that many different CDR methods will end up playing a part, depending on local circumstances.
And not just in the drive to net zero, but also in the years after 2050, as we begin to stabilize global average temperatures and gradually return them to pre-industrial norms.
Carbon Streaming uses carbon credit streams to finance CDR projects, such as reforestation and biochar, to accelerate a net-zero future.
Learn more about Carbon Streaming’s CDR projects.
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