Charles Michel says peace progress in Caucasus ‘encouraging’
President Emeritus of the European Council Charles Michel has said he is “confident” in the progress of peace efforts between Azerbaijan and Armen...
European forests are absorbing significantly less carbon dioxide than a decade ago, putting the European Union’s ambitious climate goals in jeopardy, scientists from the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) warned on Wednesday.
The study, published in Nature, found that between 2020 and 2022, forests across the continent absorbed about 332 million net tonnes of CO2 annually—nearly one-third less than between 2010 and 2014. Recent national data suggests this decline is accelerating.
"This trend, combined with the declining climate resilience of European forests, indicates that the EU's climate targets, which rely on an increasing carbon sink, might be at risk," the authors wrote.
The EU aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, relying on land and forestry sectors to offset emissions that industries cannot cut. Currently, forests offset only 6% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions—2% short of what is required to stay on course, and the gap is expected to widen further by 2030.
"Wishful thinking" to rely on forests
Agustín Rubio Sánchez, professor of ecology and soil science at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, called the current reliance on forests to balance carbon budgets “wishful thinking”.
"Forests can help, but they shouldn't be assigned quantities to balance carbon budgets," he told Reuters.
Mounting pressures from all sides
Increased logging, climate-induced wildfires and drought, and growing pest outbreaks are all degrading Europe’s forests and undermining their carbon sink capacity.
Some of these threats can be mitigated, the JRC paper said, by reducing over-harvesting, and increasing forest biodiversity with more climate-resilient tree species to help withstand extreme weather and pests.
But policymakers are concerned. "What should we do when there are factors that we, as countries, as governments, have not much ability to control – like forest fires or drought," said Sweden’s environment minister Romina Pourmokhtari last week.
The issue comes as EU states negotiate a new legally binding 2040 climate target, which still counts heavily on forests to offset remaining emissions.
Background context
According to the European Environment Agency, forests currently cover around 39% of EU land. The bloc has been pushing reforestation and climate-resilient ecosystems as part of its Green Deal. However, data shows forest carbon sink capacity is steadily weakening due to climate pressure and land-use practices.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
The war in Ukraine has reached a strategic impasse, and it seems that the conflict will not be solved by military means. This creates a path toward one of two alternatives: either a “frozen” phase that can last indefinitely or a quest for a durable political regulation.
A shooting in Nice, southeastern France, left two people dead and five injured on Friday, authorities said.
Snapchat will start charging users who store more than 5GB of photos and videos in its Memories feature, prompting backlash from long-time users.
A general strike and mass demonstrations paralysed the southern Tunisian city of Gabes on Tuesday, as tens of thousands of people demanded the closure of a state-run chemical plant blamed for a worsening pollution crisis.
Global investors managing more than $3 trillion in assets have urged governments to halt and reverse deforestation and ecosystem destruction by 2030, according to a joint statement released on Monday ahead of next month’s U.N. climate conference in Brazil.
A team of Argentine paleontologists has uncovered one of the oldest known dinosaurs, a nearly complete skeleton of a long-necked herbivore that roamed Earth 230 million years ago in what is now La Rioja province.
An earthquake of magnitude 6.7 struck Papua province in Indonesia on Thursday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
Five days after historic floods that have killed at least 66 people and damaged 100,000 homes, Mexico is still struggling to provide aid to the worst-affected communities and locate 75 missing individuals, amid growing criticism of the government’s response to the crisis.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment