Forests are now contributing to climate change – what can be done?

Trees cover 75% of Finland, making this land of conifer and deciduous trees Europe’s most forested country. Trusting the potential of its natural and forested landscape to capture carbon, Finland pledged just three years ago to become carbon-neutral by 2035.

However, its natural landscapes are releasing more emissions than they absorb, contradicting forests’ central role in its net-zero strategy to sequester carbon. It is a disastrous ecological challenge, accelerating global warming and is not an isolated phenomenon.

As climate change and land degradation progress, the natural cycles of some forests are being disrupted globally and some of these natural landscapes are now contributing to carbon emissions, risking the fundamentals of climate action via a breakdown of carbon sequestration capacities, despite decades of nature conservation and restoration efforts.

Nonetheless, calls for better leadership and action in forest conservation and restoration have not been fruitless.

Forests are all-encompassing and provide benefits for the climate, nature and people. It is widely cited that more than 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood and 80% of biodiversity can be found in them.

The virtuous circle of forest carbon capture can be restored with sustained and targeted efforts in key solutions and regions.

Forests have long been considered one of the most cost-effective nature-based solutions but it is now increasingly debated. If all forests located outside of agricultural and urban areas were allowed to recover globally, they would have the potential to capture 226 gigatons of carbon.

This represents 30% of the carbon that needs to be removed from the atmosphere to achieve climate goals. By storing carbon in trees and soil, forests, peatland and other natural landscapes are removing carbon emissions from the atmosphere while providing cleaner air, more biodiversity and community benefits.

Nonetheless, in recent years, the use of forests as carbon sinks is being criticized due to challenges ensuring the conservation of forests over their hundreds of years of lifetime vis-a-vis the pressure of agriculture, cattle production and urbanization.

Since 1990, 420 million hectares of forests have been cut down globally, equivalent to half of the United States. Primary forests, which have remained untouched by human interference, represent less than a quarter of our forests globally.

These ancient forests are vital to our global ecosystem, holding the most carbon and preserving biodiversity. Despite being key for conservation, these primitive forests are also the most at risk.

They are primarily located in tropical regions, in countries vastly affected by political instability and poverty. Hence, the lack of regulation and enforcement allows forests to be logged illegally for livelihoods and burned down to increase the country’s agricultural potential.

To make matters worse, some of the forests that are still standing aren’t functioning like they used to. Decades of human intervention, pollution, and biodiversity collapse have led to degradation and reduced ability to fulfill their primary and vital function: photosynthesis.

As forests are unable to capture as much carbon as before, land carbon emissions sometimes exceed carbon sequestration. In Finland, weaker trees in terms of mass and development, increased logging and saturated emissions from the soil are the key drivers of this carbon sequestration change.

Similarly, a study over the last decade on the southeastern Amazon revealed that it has been a net carbon source due to human intervention through deforestation and wildfire and the negative impact of climate change and drought on primary forests.

This new phenomenon drives organizations and companies away from forest and nature-based solutions.

Hope is not lost, however. The current trajectory can be reversed with positive tipping points.

Positive tipping points refer to opportunities where coordinated strategic interventions can lead to disproportionately large and rapid benefits for sustainability in the form of new technologies, social norms and behaviour.

The global uptake of renewable energy proves that with unstoppable support and targeted actions, a tipping point can be crossed and what started as a wave of actions by a few becomes an unstoppable tsunami to incorporate renewable energy in national strategies.

Similarly, by supporting specific landscapes and continuous actions, restoration and conservation of nature can be triggered and span beyond restoring the virtuous circle of forest carbon sequestration.

As priority forests are restored, the ecosystem will be healthier, allowing it to function better and exponentially multiply efforts by triggering a self-sustained change beyond climate regulation.

Forests provide benefits beyond climate, as our humanity and biodiversity depend on them. Engaging local communities and valuing biodiversity and the natural capital would reinforce a virtuous circle to reach a positive tipping point for nature conservation and restoration and achieve exponential change.

The Congo Basin is a prime example of how communities preserve the second-largest and most preserved tropical forests on Earth.

Through investment flows, awareness raising and economic incentives, the Democratic Republic of Congo is learning from its successes in the Varunga National Park to expand efforts and trigger long-lasting change in the Kivu-Kinshasa Green corridor, an area the size of France.

Over the last few decades, the national park has engaged local communities to protect the park and extract livelihoods from what nature offers while preserving the forests’ essential function. Continuous engagement and uptake of forest conservation and restoration can have decoupled effects on climate, biodiversity and local communities.

Hope is not lost for forests and their central role in tackling climate change. Each person, organization and government can contribute to positive tipping points and bring a global movement.

Individuals can use their voices and voting power to raise awareness and leverage civil society activities locally to engage and pressure corporations. Corporations and governments have access to several initiatives in place to contribute to this movement, such as 1t.org and the Tropical Forest Alliance.

We can all help push forest and nature-based solutions and restore the virtuous ancestral circle that forests and nature bring to the climate, nature and people. To tackle this challenge, Finland is reducing its forest clearance and improving its forest management.

Learning from this northern land, countries, corporations and individuals are encouraged to take action to improve their forests and ensure their continuous contribution to climate, nature and people.