What impact does deforestation have on climate change?
Deforestation is one of the major worldwide sources of greenhouse gases, responsible for up to a quarter of all emissions by some accounts (see below). Trees take in CO2 from the atmosphere when they grow. The carbon from the CO2 is stored within them as part of their biomass. In this way forests become ’sinks’ for CO2. They are a long-term storehouse for CO2. When forests are cut down or burned, the CO2 that the trees took in is released into the atmosphere. Since much of the forest that has been cleared in recent history has been forest for most of human history, the CO2 being released is effectively “new” CO2. Trees can hold so much sequestered CO2 (as much as 1200 tons of sequestered CO2 per hectare (2.47 acres)) that when they are lost, much gets released into the atmosphere.Below from are excerpts from an article published in the British newspaper The Independent (May 14th, 2007). The article summarizes work from the Global Canopy Programme from Oxford, The Stern Report and the M
