Typical discussions about solutions to the climate crisis focus on reducing emissions from energy, industry and transportation although, increasingly, eating less meat is gaining traction too. However, the UN’s latest IPCC report released in August makes it clear that how we use land is another critical factor as it is both a source of emissions and a solution to their capture (see above chart).
Trees, other vegetation and soils sequester nearly one-third of human-caused CO2 emissions but this capability is under threat because the way we currently use land is making the climate crisis worse. We can’t limit temperatures to safe levels without profound changes to how we produce our food and manage land.
Twenty-three percent of human-caused GHG emissions come from agriculture, forestry and other uses. The way we use land e.g., clearing forests for farming and logging drive these emissions. Forty-four percent of methane – a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 -- comes from agriculture, the destruction of peatlands and other land-based sources.
Despite these numbers, the land is still managing to remove more emissions than it emits but further deforestation and land degradation will continue to narrow this gap and diminish the land’s ability to act as a carbon sink. Also, the temperature of the land is rising 75% faster than the global average which, of course, includes the oceans. This is leading to wildfires, heatwaves and more extreme rainfall. More than 74,000 fires have burned in Brazil so far this year – half of which are/were in the Amazon. Sources calculate this to be an 80-84% increase compared with last year.
The largest potential for reducing emissions lies in curbing deforestation, especially in tropical forests, as well as large-scale replanting of forests and pasture land. Also, large scale changes to food processing, low carbon farming methods, shifting to plant-based foods and reducing food and agricultural waste, will all help lower the carbon foot print of our food system and -- not only safeguard -- but strengthen the land’s ability to sequester emissions. Source: www.wri.org