1 - Mitigation Flashcards
(16 cards)
Define nature-based solutions.
(IUCN, 2025) - ‘actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems in ways that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, to provide both human well-being and biodiversity benefits’
Define mitigation.
The action of reducing the severity of climate change
What nature based solution holds the greatest potential regarding mitigation?
Reforestation - could potentially mitigate >10 GtC of CO2 equivalent per year by 2030(Griscome et al., 2017)
What nature based solution has the greatest possible contribution to the global carbon sink?
Managing working lands - could contribute 4 gigatonnes of CO2 a year(Girardin et al., 2021)
What nature based solution could have the greatest contribution to cost-effective avoided emissions?
Protecting intact forests, wetlands and grasslands could prevent 4 gigatonnes of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere annually(Girardin et al., 2021)
Why is carbon drawdown by nature-based solutions limited?
Nature-based solutions are often land hungry ways to tackle climate change, and they can only take up so much space
Name an international initaitive to plant trees for climate change.
The UN Bonn Challenge
Describe in detail the UN Bonn Challenge.
IUCN(2020) - global goal to reforest degraded and deforested land - 350m ha by 2030 - this would sequester up to 1.6 gigatonnes of carbon(GtC) per year
Name one critique of the Bonn Challenge.
Neimark(2018) - majority of the land pledged under Bonn Challenge is for monoculture plantation - plantation remove/store much less carbon than natural forests(essentially green deserts) & may even release carbon from soil if planted on peatland
Where might afforestation be ineffective and why?
Africa - many countries have committed to AFR100(African offshoot of Bonn Challenge) - Burundi have pledged to converting 72% of the country’s land into plantations to counter climate change(Lewis et al., 2019), however plantations are not very effective at storing carbon & this may negatively impact existing grassy ecosystems(Bond et al., 2019)
Describe a trade-off of afforestation.
Afforestation has been found to drastically increase C storage, however, reduces water availability in the area due to transpiration(Korchani et al., 2022)
What is a major issue concerning carbon credits?
Many of them are worthless - >90% of Verra’s rainforest carbon credits do not represent real emission reductions(West et al., 2023)
What is the correlation between biodiversity and productivity?
Isabell et al.(2015) found that the two are positively correlated - in climates with higher numbers of species, there are higher levels of productivity
What is the correlation between biodiversity loss and carbon sequestration?
Weiskopf et al.(2024) signified that greater levels of biodiversity loss will result in less carbon sequestration - therefore, negative correlation between the two
What is the correlation between biodiversity & climate change?
As biodiversity increases, climate change reduces.
What is the correlation between carbon sequestration and climate change?
As carbon sequestration increases, the rate of climate change decreases
