What happens to the world if #forests stop absorbing #carbon? Ask #Finland
#NaturalSinks of forests and #peat were key to Finland’s ambitious target to be #CarbonNeutral by 2035. But now, the land has started emitting more #GreenhouseGases than it stores
"The number of dying trees also increased in recent years as forests are stressed by #drought and high temperatures. In south-east Finland, the number of dying trees has risen rapidly, increasing 788% in just six years between 2017 and 2023, and the amount of standing deadwood – decaying trees – is up by about 900%."
by Patrick Greenfield, Inari, Finland
"Tiina Sanila-Aikio cannot remember a summer this warm. The months of midnight sun around #Inari, in Finnish Lapland, have been hot and dry. Conifer needles on the branch-tips are orange when they should be a deep green. The moss on the forest floor, usually swollen with water, has withered.
"'I have spoken with many old #ReindeerHerders who have never experienced the heat that we’ve had this summer. The sun keeps shining and it never rains,' says Sanila-Aikio, former president of the #FinnishSami parliament.
"The #BorealForests here in the #Sami homeland take so long to grow that even small, stunted trees are often hundreds of years old. It is part of the #Taiga – meaning “land of the little sticks” in Russian – that stretches around the far northern hemisphere through #Siberia, #Scandinavia, #Alaska and #Canada.
"It is these forests that helped underpin the credibility of the most ambitious carbon-neutrality target in the developed world: Finland’s commitment to be #CarbonNeutral by 2035.
"The law, which came into force two years ago, means the country is aiming to reach the target 15 years earlier than many of its EU counterparts.
"In a country of 5.6 million people with nearly 70% covered by forests and peatlands, many assumed the plan would not be a problem.
"For decades, the country’s forests and peatlands had reliably removed more carbon from the atmosphere than they released. But from about 2010, the amount the land absorbed started to decline, slowly at first, then rapidly. By 2018, Finland’s land sink – the phrase scientists use to describe something that absorbs more carbon than it releases – had vanished."
Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/15/finland-emissions-target-forests-peatlands-sinks-absorbing-carbon-aoe?CMP=GTUK_email
#IndigenousPeople #GlobalWarming #CarbonSinks #DyingTrees #Extinction