Carbon prospecting in tropical forests for climate change mitigation.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33627656.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-21560-2 and PMC identifier 7904812.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Carbon finance projects that protect tropical forests could support both nature conservation and climate change mitigation goals. Global demand for nature-based carbon credits is outpacing their supply, due partly to gaps in knowledge needed to inform and prioritize investment decisions. Here, we show that at current carbon market prices the protection of tropical forests can generate investible carbon amounting to 1.8 (±1.1) GtCO<sub>2</sub>e yr<sup>-1</sup> globally. We further show that financially viable carbon projects could generate return-on-investment amounting to $46.0b y<sup>-1</sup> in net present value (Asia-Pacific: $24.6b y<sup>-1</sup>; Americas: $19.1b y<sup>-1</sup>; Africa: $2.4b y<sup>-1</sup>). However, we also find that ~80% (1.24 billion ha) of forest carbon sites would be financially unviable for failing to break even over the project lifetime. From a conservation perspective, unless carbon prices increase in the future, it is imperative to implement other conservation interventions, in addition to carbon finance, to safeguard carbon stocks and biodiversity in vulnerable forests.