Africa’s forests transformed from carbon sink to carbon source, study finds | Climate crisis

Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink to a carbon source, according to the research, which underlines the need for urgent action to save the world’s greatest natural climate stabilizers.

The alarming change since 2010 has affected all three of the planet’s main rainforest regions (the South American Amazon, Southeast Asia and Africa has gone from being an ally in the fight against climate breakdown to being part of the problem.

The root cause of the problem is human activity. Farmers are clearing more land for food production. Infrastructure projects and mining further increase the loss of vegetation and global warming from the burning of gas, oil and coal, thus reducing the resilience of ecosystems.

Scientists found that: 2010 and 2017African forests lost approximately 106 billion kg of biomass per year; This is equivalent to the weight of approximately 106 million cars. Worst affected were tropical moist broadleaf forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and parts of West Africa.

Study, Published Friday in Scientific ReportsIt was led by researchers at the National Earth Observation Center at the Universities of Leicester, Sheffield and Edinburgh. Using satellite data and machine learning, they tracked changes over more than a decade in the amount of carbon stored in trees and woody vegetation.

They found that Africa gained carbon between 2007 and 2010, but widespread forest loss has since tipped the balance and the continent began contributing more CO2.₂ to the atmosphere.

The authors said the results show urgent action is needed to halt forest loss or the world risks losing one of its most important natural carbon buffers. They say Brazil has launched an initiative called the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which aims to mobilize more than $100bn (£76bn) for forest conservation by paying countries to leave their forests untouched.

But so far, only a few countries have invested a total of $6.5 billion in the initiative.

Prof Heiko Balzter, senior author and director of the Environmental Futures Institute at the University of Leicester, said the study showed the importance of rapidly scaling up the TFFF.

“Policymakers must respond by implementing better conservation measures to protect the world’s tropical forests,” Balzter said.

“Four years ago, at Cop26 in Glasgow, world leaders announced their intention to end global deforestation by 2030. But progress is not being made fast enough. The new TFFF aims to pay forested countries to root out their trees. It is a way for governments and private investors to counter the drivers of deforestation, such as mineral and metal mining and farmland encroachment. But for this to work, more countries need to pay.”