Better Land Use Can Achieve 30% of Carbon Cuts by 2030
Originally posted on EcoWatch.com
Written by Tim Radford
Land use is often a forgotten priority, yet those of us who wish to contain global warming and avert catastrophic climate change have a natural ally: the land.
As nations plan to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion, an international team of scientists has calculated just how much the natural and farmed world could contribute to future stability by absorbing ever more carbon dioxide.
The answer is: up to 30 percent more than anyone had first thought. Natural climate solutions—a way of saving protected forests, conserved marshlands and carefully managed farmland and pasture—could deliver 37 percent of the carbon mitigation needed by 2030.
And if governments, farmers, river authorities, land managers and foresters made the best choices, such steps would mean that the world had a 66 percent chance of containing global warming to below the 2°C target agreed by 197 nations in Paris in 2015.