Page 24 - RusRPTAug24

24 I Companies & Markets bne August 2024
Extreme heat, droughts and wildfires signficantly combined to reduce plants and trees' ability to fix carbon dioxide last year, adding to the acceleration of the climate crisis. / bne IntelliNews
bne:Green
Plants absorbing less carbon dioxide in 2023, accelerating global warming
Ben Aris in Berlin
Plants' and trees' ability ability to absorb carbon dioxide fell dramatically in 2023, due to increased heat stress in vegetation, a new study revealed.
A “low latency carbon budget analysis” reveals a large decline in the land carbon sink in 2023, according to a new academic paper.
A tree typically absorbs 25kg of CO2 each year (although bamboo absorbs about a third more carbon than a tree) and globally trees absorb an estimated 7.6 gigatonnes of carbon, acting as a net carbon sink, removing greenhouse gases.
“In 2023, the CO2 growth rate was 3.37 +/- 0.11 ppm at Mauna Loa [in Hawaii], 86% above the previous year, and hitting a record high since observations began in 1958, while global fossil fuel CO2 emissions only increased by 0.6 +/- 0.5%. This implies an unprecedented weakening of land and ocean [carbon] sinks, and raises the question of where and why this reduction happened,” the paper authored by Piyu Ke et al reported.
www.bne.eu
The study found that while ocean carbon sinks were working fine, the problem was on land, where multiple factors affect the amount of CO2 plants can absorb, including droughts, fires and man-made factors like logging.
“Land regions exposed to extreme heat in 2023 contributed
a gross carbon loss of 1.73 gigatonnes a year, indicating that record warming in 2023 had a strong negative impact on the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to mitigate climate change,” the paper found.
As bne IntelliNews reported, trees were already “coughing
not breathing” due to climate crisis stress, according to another earlier study. Trees are struggling to trap carbon dioxide in warmer, drier climates, meaning that they may no longer serve as a solution for offsetting humanity's carbon footprint as global warming accelerates, a study by Penn State university found.
“If the land carbon sink is decreased, it will be even harder