Researchers find that using forests to offset carbon emissions will require a better understanding of the risks.
Given the tremendous ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, some governments want to plant forests to offset greenhouse gas emissions — a sort of climate investment. But if a forest goes bust, researchers say, much of that stored carbon could go up in smoke.
UC Santa Barbara terrestrial scientist Anna Trugman and her colleagues realized that we can’t simply deploy forests in the fight against climate change. “We found that there is a real need to better understand how much risk forests face due to climate-change driven mortality factors like fire, insect outbreaks and drought,” Trugman said, “before we can ensure how appropriate forest carbon storage projects are to meet ambitious aims for mitigating climate change.”
Last year, Trugman and her colleagues William Anderegg and Grayson Badgley, at University of Utah, organized a workshop to assemble some of the foremost experts on climate change risks to forests.
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