Guest post: Remembering Nature’s Power

The Land Trust Alliance blog continues to tackle many conservation issues, and I thought I would share with you their latest blog on climate change.

Several major reports in recent weeks have predicted cataclysmic results without a prompt, meaningful and universal commitment to tackling climate change. Nations, businesses, the nonprofit sector and individuals all must respond to this call.

To avoid the most devastating economic and societal impacts of climate change — predicted by the National Climate Assessment and the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change special report — we must go beyond simply reducing the rate and quantities of our greenhouse gas emissions. We must actively remove carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere through “negative emissions.”

As we seek to limit warming and other climate impacts as much as possible, the task before us is as demanding as it is imperative. But it is with great optimism that I am reminded that we have nature’s power on our side.

A new study published in Science Advances highlights the opportunity we have in the United States. Led by The Nature Conservancy, an accredited Land Trust Alliance member, the study represents the most comprehensive and encouraging national assessment yet of how carbon emissions can be reduced and stored through better management of natural and working lands in the United States. According to the study, nature-based solutions deployed at a national level could remove up to 21 percent of annual carbon pollution in the U.S.

These findings build on last year’s Natural Climate Solutions report, which concluded that the world’s forests, grasslands and wetlands could reduce carbon pollution in quantities large enough to deliver 37 percent of the global emission reductions needed by 2030 to keep temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius.

To more easily visualize the amazing potential of nature to reduce emissions at the state and national levels, visit Nature4Climate’s U.S. State Mapper tool.

More than ever, it is clear that we must urgently protect and enhance these “carbon sinks.” Land trusts are leading the way by increasing the rate of their conservation work and demonstrating climate-smart land management practices. As just one example, the accredited Southern Plains Land Trust is managing the restoration and preservation of two Colorado ranches that sequester 8,000 metric tons of soil carbon per year. Their actions have yielded the first grassland carbon offsets sold on the voluntary carbon market.

Through the Alliance’s Land and Climate Program, we will continue to share information and tools with land trusts to help demonstrate and promote the potential of conserved and well-managed forests, wetlands, grasslands and agricultural lands to avoid carbon pollution. Together, we can make the case that cost-effective, nonpartisan natural climate solutions are essential to how we tackle the climate change challenge. It’s an important part of how land trusts continue to safeguard our lands, our waters, our health and our ways of life.

Originally published in the LTA blog.