Forest protects the climate. Reforestation can decisively contribute to mitigating global warming according to the Paris Agreement.
Forest protects the climate. Reforestation can decisively contribute to mitigating global warming according to the Paris Agreement. Based on simulations, researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have studied the conditions that should be fulfilled in Europe for this. According to the study published in Environmental Research Letters (DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab3744 External Link), sufficient increase in forest areas requires a transformation of the food system and in particular, the reduction of meat consumption.
According to the Paris Agreement, global temperature increase must be limited to well below 2°C, if possible, to 1.5°C. Land-based mitigation measures, especially afforestation, reforestation, and avoided deforestation, can help reach this goal. Trees absorb CO2 greenhouse gas from the atmosphere to produce biomass and, thus, fight against global warming. The expansion of forests, however, competes with land for agriculture not only regionally, but also globally. The more so as global population growth and change of dietary habits will cause the worldwide demand for food and in particular for meat to increase.
With the help of model simulations, researchers of the Atmospheric Environmental Research Division of KIT’s Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), i.e. KIT’s Campus Alpine in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the University of Edinburgh, Cranfield University / UK, and the TIAMASG Foundation in Bucharest recently studied the conditions under which forests in Europe can bind sufficient carbon. For their study published in Environmental Research Letters, the scientists used an integrated model developed within the EU project IMPRESSIONS (Impacts and risks from high-end scenarios: strategies for innovative solutions). By using this interactive, web-based platform, impacts of climate change, damage potentials, and adaptation strategies can be investigated. The so-called integrated assessment platform (IAP) comprises interconnected meta-models for urban development, water resources, floods, forest, and agriculture, as well as biodiversity and visualizes relationships between climatic and socioeconomic factors.
Read more at Karlsruher Institut Für Technologie (KIT)
Image: Increasing forest areas can decisively contribute to reaching the Paris climate goal -- but it competes with agriculture for land. (Credit: Photo: Sam Rabin, KIT)
