View The Great American Stand: US Forests & The Climate Emergency” by Bill Moomaw and Danna Smith, Dogwood Alliance Media Release, Mar 21, 2017. The report was released on the International Day of Forests.
From the Executive Summary:
Standing forests are the only proven system that can remove and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at the scale necessary to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius this century. It is therefore essential to not only prevent further emissions from fossil fuels, deforestation, forest degradation, and bioenergy, but also to expand our forests’ capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it long-term.
If we halted deforestation, protected existing forests, and expanded and restored degraded forests, we could reduce annual emissions by 75 percent in the next half a century. If fossil fuels were rapidly phased out during this same time period, we could reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid catastrophic climate change. But, we cannot solve the climate crisis without a major scale-up in forest protection and restoration across the planet. We must not only protect remnant primary, intact forests, but also conserve and restore less pristine landscapes. Yet, to date, forest protection commitments and funding are too narrowly focused on tropical forests.
Tip of the Hat to Tree Frog Creative News Mar 22, 2017