Tuesday 26 March 2024
New Study Reveals Over 80% of Community-led Restoration Sites on Restor Have Earth Cooling Potential
The research pinpoints climate-positive locations considering carbon and albedo using advanced spatial data
Figure: The map shows Restor sites used in this study along with the legend for the magnitude of climate cooling and warming across the world, considering both changes in carbon and albedo.
London, United Kingdom – A new study by researchers at Clark University, alongside scientists from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and ETH Zurich, published today in the journal Nature Communications, provides a global analysis of where restoring tree cover is most effective at cooling the global climate system.
In recent decades, there has been a growing recognition of the need to protect and restore nature. But until recently, scientists have lacked a global understanding of where the world’s restoration projects exist, so studying the global movement or understanding its impacts has been impossible. For the first time ever, scientists have been able to use the advanced spatial technology provided by Restor to explore the potential global climate impacts of restoration efforts across the globe.
The study, Accounting for Albedo Change to Identify Climate Positive Tree Cover Restoration, highlights how restoring tree cover can, in some locations, trigger global warming rather than global cooling. To see whether restoration actions were occurring in climate-negative zones, the scientists looked at where Restor’s sites occur and found instead that over 80% of the restoration sites are in climate-positive places, where restoring tree cover can have a net cooling effect on the planet. Restor makes it possible, for the first time, to get a comprehensive view of restoration sites worldwide with precise data on site locations.
The albedo research provides a series of maps that help nature practitioners and land managers determine the most climate-positive places for restoring tree cover to help guide grand ambitions for scaling up restoration. The study found that within every biome, there are places where restoration of tree cover can provide climate mitigation benefits.
“The balance of carbon storage versus albedo change that comes from restoring tree cover varies from place to place, but until now we didn’t have the tools to tell the good climate solutions from the bad. Our study aims to change that, providing the maps needed to empower smarter decisions while also ensuring that limited finance is directed at those locations where restoring tree cover can make the most positive difference as a natural climate solution.” Lead author Natalia Hasler, a research scientist at the George Perkins Marsh Institute – Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Although most of the thousands of on-the-ground projects are concentrated in these zones of climate-positive opportunity, the study also found that changes in albedo did diminish the climate benefit - by 20% or more in the majority of the project areas. Thus, incorporating albedo into the climate ledger is important for almost all projects that are seeking to tackle climate change.