How much carbon sequestration occurs in the U.S.?
The U.S. landscape acts as a net carbon sink—it sequesters more carbon than it emits. Two types of analyses confirm this: 1) atmospheric, or top-down, methods that look at changes in CO2 concentrations; and 2) land-based, or bottom-up, methods that incorporate on-the-ground inventories or plot measurements. Net sequestration (i.e., the difference between carbon gains and losses) in U.S. forests, urban trees and agricultural soils totaled almost 840 teragrams (Tg) of CO2 equivalent (or about 230 Tg or million metric tons of carbon equivalent) in 2001 (Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks). This offsets approximately 15% of total U.S. CO2 emissions from the energy, transportation and other sectors. However, the overall sequestration level in the U.S. has been declining and is projected to continue declining, due to increasing harvests, land-use changes and maturing forests. More information on U.S. carbon sequestration estimates and historical trends can be found under th
