Carbon Management Strategies Flashcards
What are wetlands + how much of the earth’s surface + carbon do they occupy
Wetlands include freshwater marshes, salt marshes, peatlands, floodplains + mangroves
- wetlands occupy 6-9% of the earth’s surface + contain 35% of the terrestrial carbon pool
How is wetland restoration a carbon cycle management strategy?
The need to reduce CO2 emissions has led to increased protection of wetlands as crucial carbon sinks:
- management initiatives such as the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
- reforestation focuses on raising local water tables to recreate waterlogged conditions
Give an example of a wetland restoration (carbon cycle management strategy)
- Cambridgeshire, uk
- up to 400 hectares of farmland being converted back to wetland
What is afforestation and how is it a sustainable climate change combat method
Afforestation involves planting trees in deforested areas or areas that have never been forested:
- trees are carbon sinks, so they help reduce atmospheric CO2 levels in long term, meaning it is sustainable climate change combat method
Give an example of afforestation
- China - massive government-sponsored afforestation project began in 1978, attempting to improve biosphere carbon absorption as well as to combat desertification:
- aims to afforest 400,000km2 by 2050
Why is agriculture contributing to enhanced greenhouse effect?
Unsustainable agricultural practises eg over cultivation, overgrazing often result in soil erosion + the release of large quantities of CO2 to the atmosphere
- intensive livestock farming produces 100 million tonnes of CH4 (methane)/year
The Kyoto Protocol, 1997 - International Agreement to tackle climate change
- under this protocol most rich countries agreed to legally binding reductions in CO2 emissions
- some of world’s biggest polluters eg China + India were exempted due to EDC status
- some rich + heavily polluting countries eg Australia, Canada + USA either refuse to ratify or have withdrawn from treaty
The Paris Agreement, 2020
- aims to reduce global CO2 emissions to 60% of 2010 levels by 2050
- however, countries set their own voluntary targets (not legally binding)
- in 2017, Trump announced USA would be withdrawing from the agreement
What is cap and trade
Cap and trade offers an alternative market-based approach to limit CO2 emissions:
- businesses are allocated an annual CO2 emissions quota. If they emit less than their quota, they can sell off their excess ‘carbon credits’ to firms that are over their quotas
What is carbon offsetting
The counteracting of carbon dioxide emissions w an equivalent reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
How can CO2 emission changes be monitored
- monitoring relies heavily on satellite technology
- using GIS techniques, data gathered from satellite monitoring can be mapped + analysed to show areas of anomalies, trends + regions of change
What and how is atmospheric CO2 being monitored
NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2
- new satellite measurements of global atmospheric CO2
