The world’s established forests remove 2.4 billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere — equivalent to one third of current annual fossil fuel emissions — according to new research published in the journal Science.
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Can growing trees for fuel actually cut down CO2 emissions?
Sustainable forestry practices that provide timber for the building trades can help mitigate the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a new study found.
One reason is younger trees absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere than mature trees. Another is that cutting trees after their CO2 absorption rates taper provides building materials that can be used instead of steel and concrete, which are created in processes that emit large quantities of CO2.
NEWS: Clean cookstoves promote sustainability of local resources
“Many people believe that wood energy is a main driver for deforestation, though deforestation and forest degradation at a global level is rather a consequence of conversion of the forests for agricultural purposes such as large scale productions for pasture, oil palms, soy beans, or for subsistence production,” Florian Steierer, forestry officer of wood energy at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
Yo, African countries: Don’t count your billions before they hatch.
African countries hoping to cash in on the $100 billion carrot being dangled by climate change negotiators for adaptation and mitigation in the developing world will first have to figure out how to sustainably provide energy to the more than 90% of people in sub-Sahara that depend on wood and charcoal for cooking and heating.
NEWS: Congo’s poor need incentives to save giant forests
* Experts in Congo for talks on saving big three forests * Poor countries need incentives to save forest By Jonny Hogg GEMENA, Democratic Republic of the Congo, May 31 (Reuters) “Environmental experts from 35 countries were meeting in the Congo Republic, DRC’s smaller neighbour, on Tuesday for a week-long summit seeking ways to protect the world’s three largest rainforests — the Amazon in South America, the Congo in Central Africa and the Borneo-Mekong in Indonesia. The outcome of the summit could play a role in the preservation of some 80 percent of the world’s remaining tropical forest, seen by Continue reading