A new report released by The Nature Conservancy in November examines the country’s potential to implement natural solutions-- such as growing taller trees, improving soil health, protecting grasslands and restoring coastal wetlands-- to increase carbon storage and reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
Essentially, turbo-charging nature to address global warming, while also providing natural benefits for people, water and wildlife.
The findings in the report underscore the value of pathways like forest carbon sequestration, which are being advanced in Pennsylvania through the Working Woodlands Program of the PA Chapter-The Nature Conservancy. It’s another area where a state like Pennsylvania can make a significant impact.
“Natural climate solutions for the United States,” a the study authored by The Nature Conservancy and 21 institutional partners and published in the journal Science Advances, investigates the potential of 21 different natural functions, from restoring forests and grasslands to a range of agricultural practices.
This study also considers how carbon payments at various price levels could incentivize action where low-cost opportunities exist.
It is the first comprehensive assessment of land-based climate solutions in the U.S., following on an earlier TNC-led study showing that, worldwide, natural solutions could mitigate more than a third of the emissions needed to hit global targets by 2030.
The U.S. study shows that if all 21 pathways were implemented to their full potential, they could prevent or sequester more than one-fifth of annual U.S. greenhouse gas pollution-- the equivalent of removing the emissions from all U.S. cars and trucks from the road.
Or, to frame it another away, the equivalent of the entire annual emissions from Brazil.
The findings in the report are significant for the entire world.
While the U.S.’s future in the Paris Climate Agreement may be in question, its contribution to global emissions is not. The world can’t keep temperatures within safe boundaries if large industrialized nations like the U.S. don’t take steps to reduce pollution.
Of course the sheer size and diversity of the U.S. land mass also ensures the country has significant potential for land-based solutions.
Globally, natural solutions can get us a third of the way to the Paris Agreement targets by 2030, with a tenth of that potential coming from the U.S. And the variety pathways available ensures that almost any state can contribute on some level.
Forest-based pathways offer the most potential overall—especially reforestation in Eastern seaboard and Appalachian states.
But agricultural practices also show promise—Iowa might rank 26th in land area among states, but its strength on agricultural pathways gives it the second greatest potential overall.
Fire management and tidal wetland restoration can also make an impact; even densely populated areas can contribute through urban reforestation.
Perhaps most important, though, is that many of these natural solutions can implemented today, and at a relatively low cost compared with other strategies to address global warming. And as carbon markets continue to grow, payments for carbon offsets could offer income for land owners who adopt climate-friendly management strategies.
Even without carbon payments, though, the natural benefits generated by these pathways offer powerful incentives.
Strategies like improved fire management offer an obvious good for people, of course, but other pathways also generate significant benefits for communities and wildlife.
Agricultural pathways such as nutrient management and using more cover crops, for example, reduce runoff into rivers, ensuring cleaner drinking water downstream and reducing the size of hypoxic “dead zones” such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico.
Reforestation also improves water filtration and creates more habitat for wildlife.
“One of America’s greatest assets is its land,” says Joe Fargione, the lead author of the paper and TNC’s lead scientist for North America. “We demonstrated we could reduce carbon pollution and filter water, enhance fish and wildlife habitat, and have better soil health to grow our food—all at the same time. “
Natural pathways are just one piece of puzzle, of course—we’ll also have to accelerate the transition to clean energy and rapidly cut fossil fuel pollution, in the U.S. around the world.
But the U.S. and global studies demonstrate that nature can and must serve as a bridge now to a clean energy future. The bottom line is that we cannot afford to ignore natural solutions for global warming that are available to us now, right beneath our feet.
Click Here for a copy of the report.
PA-TNC Working Woodlands
Visit the PA-TNC Working Woods Program webpage to learn more about the program. Questions should be directed to: workingwoodlands@tnc.org.
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(Reprinted from The Nature Conservancy website.)
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