“Changed land use causes more CO2 than expected”

Forest clearance and other changes to the landscape are responsible for more CO2-emissions than previously thought, researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have found. “Forests, grasslands and fields contribute considerably to climate protection” by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, KIT said in a press release. Comparing the absorbance patterns of natural and transformed landscape now suggested that vegetation’s capacity to store CO2 was even “greater than expected. [...] In any case, our results support efforts to prevent further large-scale forest clearance in order to protect the climate,” KIT added. 

Find the press release in German here and an abstract of the study in English here.

For more information, see the CLEW dossier The energy transition and climate change.