research note <\/a>by scientists from Conservation International \u2013 an American non-profit environmental agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe scientists have compiled carbon data from forests, grasslands\nand wetlands across the world in efforts to champion conservation of these living\ncarbon reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They identified pockets of \u2018irrecoverable carbon\u2019 \u2014 vast stores of\ncarbon at risk of being released back into the atmosphere as a result of\nunsustainable human activities. If released, this amount of carbon cannot be\ncaptured back by 2050 \u2013 the year by which the earth needs to reach net-zero\nemissions to avoid a climate catastrophe. The scientists have used the term\n\u2018irrecoverable carbon\u2019 to mean if lost from the carbon sinks such as forests it\nwon\u2019t be recovered, worsening carbon levels in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u201cCarbon is constantly flowing in and out of ecosystems, but as humans destroy city-size swaths of forests at an increasing rate, the scale is tipping heavily towards out,\u201d said Will Turner, a scientist at Conservation International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe already know that\nfossil fuels release massive amounts of emissions and that we need to keep them\nin the ground. We now know that when particular ecosystems are destroyed or\ndegraded, they release massive amounts of carbon that we simply cannot get back\nin time to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change. We have to make protecting\nof these places a top priority of this decade,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Irrecoverable carbon, the study reveals, spans six of the seven\ncontinents, including vast stores in the Amazon, the Congo Basin, Indonesia,\nNorthwestern North America, Southern Chile, Southeastern Australia and New\nZealand. These ecosystems contain more than 260 billion tonnes of irrecoverable\ncarbon, most of which is stored in mangroves, peatlands, old-growth forests and\nmarshes. This amount of carbon is equivalent to 26 years of fossil fuel\nemissions at current rates and risks escaping back into the atmosphere should\nthe natural systems be destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are talking about a generation\u2019s worth of carbon contained in\nthese critical ecosystems,\u201d said Allie Goldstein, a climate scientist at the\nagency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe good news is that we now know where this irrecoverable carbon\ncan be found \u2014 and it is largely within our control to protect it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further, the report says that tropical deforestation\nrates, driven by agriculture and logging,\nhave soared across the world. In the Amazon, the world\u2019s largest rainforest,\nforest destruction has surged a staggering 85 percent since 2018. Mangroves\ncontinue to be destroyed, with more than 247,000 acres lost from 2000 to 2012.\nPeatlands are suffering a similar fate, drained and cleared, mostly to make\nroom for oil palm plantations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As agricultural production\nand development intensify across the globe, countries must act both reactively\nand proactively to protect these crucial ecosystems, Turner advised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPreventing deforestation only in places where it is happening right now is like having a health-care system made up of only emergency rooms. We need to be proactive about protecting these living carbon reserves while we still can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read also:<\/strong> The Role Of Water In Fighting Climate Change<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forests, grasslands and wetlands are known to trap and store carbon, naturally helping the earth reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere. But what would happen if these carbon sinks, including…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[207,290,358,421,423,759,1048,1534],"class_list":["post-8909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-responsibility","tag-amazon-forest","tag-carbon","tag-climate-change","tag-congo-basin","tag-conservation-international","tag-greenhouse-gases","tag-nature","tag-wetlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}