How does terrestrial carbon storage reduce global warming?
Terrestrial carbon sequestration reduces global warming by slowing down the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Because the organic carbon in biomass and soils originated from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more carbon is stored in biomass and in soils, the less carbon is stored in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the most significant greenhouse gas. Roughly speaking, terrestrial carbon sequestration is the only technology which could actually reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Other technologies – energy efficiency, fossil fuel carbon capture and storage, renewable energy such as wind, solar, bioenergy simply reduce the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere; they don’t actively remove the CO2.
