Breathing in the East

[The Lawspeaker]

Breathing in the East

Published on May 22 2009 | La Libre Belgique

Researchers have drawn up a “carbon balance sheet” for Europe’s terrestrial ecosystems. The bottom line: these “carbon sinks” absorb roughly 20% of the CO2 emissions in the atmosphere.

The process of global warming, largely due to greenhouse gas emissions from the unbridled consumption of fossil fuels, has been partially buffered by certain “natural carbon sinks” (1) that absorb about half the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere.

But exactly how much carbon dioxide do Europe’s terrestrial ecosystems capture – and how much do they give off themselves? Several hundred researchers have joined forces in the CarboEurope project to try to answer these questions. From 2004 to 2008 they analysed carbon exchanges at a hundred sites in continental Europe from the Atlantic coast to the Urals, essentially woodlands, grasslands, farmlands and, to a lesser extent, peat bogs. The scientists investigated every representative ecosystem at every latitude in the European Union to draw up a “continental carbon balance sheet”. Their findings, which have just been released, present some intriguing insights.

It turns out that, in the aggregate, continental Europe’s terrestrial ecosystems do indeed form a carbon sink. On average, and even if there are regional variations, “approximately 20% of the CO2 emitted by fossil fuel combustion is absorbed by this biosphere,” concludes the study. “But the figure drops to 10% for the 25-nation EU.” In fact, the carbon balance for the EU 25 (i.e. before the 2007 accession of Romania and Bulgaria) remains neutral if we allow for the impact of methane and nitrous oxide, which, though present in smaller quantities, have a much greater leveraging effect on global warming than carbon dioxide does.

“Nearly 60% of continental Europe’s carbon sinks are located in the Eastern countries, chiefly in Russia. Forests constitute the most powerful natural tool for storing CO2 in the long term,” the researchers explain, but grasslands kick in too by sequestering more carbon in the soil than woodland areas. Farmlands, on the other hand, prove less salutary: “We found that the latter are sources of emissions and not sinks. European farming doesn’t give off much carbon dioxide, but it’s a major source of other greenhouse gases, namely methane and nitrous oxide” – apparently a consequence of certain methods of intensive farming.

Furthermore, the study yields other significant insights into the forests’ capacity to capture CO2. “If we take a broader perspective in terms of space and time, we find the chief determinant of that capacity is the age of the forest, but it is also influenced by deposits of atmospheric nitrogen.” Better still, while it was previously believed that their overall effect was neutral, even the oldest forests continue to stockpile carbon. This eye-opener is bound to attract the attention of countries with sizeable wooded areas. What remains to be studied now is the best way of managing these “sinks” in order to maintain, or even increase, their efficacy.


(1) A natural carbon sink absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and helps reduce the quantity of CO2. In our time, the main natural carbon sinks are the oceans and photosynthesis by plants and algae.

[Albion]

“Nearly 60% of continental Europe’s carbon sinks are located in the Eastern countries, chiefly in Russia.

No surprise there then.

Bogs, moors, heaths and wetlands are also important. If we could recreate and expand areas of lost wetlands it would help capture a lot of Carbon Dioxide in the rich plant life and sediments as well as create a great habitat for wildlife.

We need to research materials in which we can lock Carbon Dioxide into and I've wondered myself if we could ever simply have specially built plants filtering it out of the atmosphere directly (that is plants as in power plants).

The simplest and best solution I believe would be to reforest large areas of land we no longer need with native trees and let some return to wetlands or other natural states, this could lock in much CO2 and create more areas of good habitat at the same time.