Land use can achieve 30% of carbon cuts by 2030

Rethinking land use – the way we exploit, manage and neglect the land – could achieve  about a third of the carbon cuts needed in the next decade.

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% 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% 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% chance of containing global warming to below the 2°C target agreed by 197 nations in Paris in 2015.

There are problems: the same natural machinery that could convert atmospheric carbon into foliage, timber and roots must also provide food and shelter for the expected 9 billion humans and the millions of animal species with whom humans share the planet.

But researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that even after accounting for food security, the delivery of fabrics for clothing and shelter, and the protection of biodiversity, their natural climate solutions could account for 23.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent every year, almost a third more than previous calculations.

“The way we manage the lands in the future could deliver 37% of the solution to climate change . . . if we are serious about climate change, then we are going to have to get serious about investing in nature“

As usual with intricate, headache-inducing calculations that involve the global carbon budget, the researchers had to think about the economic costs of such steps, and factor in the most cost-effective solutions.

This means, say the authors, that with cost-effect