IPCC Confirms Our Mission: We Must Regenerate Nature
We’re onto something here! CarbonABLE’s mission, to restore the balance to the planet’s natural carbon sinks, was named a key climate solution in the most recent IPCC report.
Tomorrow is too late
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), recently released in February 2022 a very essential report part of its Sixth Assessment¹. In this report more than 270 experts examined over 14,000 peer-reviewed studies to summarize vulnerabilities, impacts, and adaptability to climate change. Their analysis highlights the importance of not just protecting, but also regenerating nature. Further, the regeneration of forests is one area where humanity may be able to help rebalance the climate in a relatively short time frame.
The report seeks to pass on a critical message: the time for action is now, otherwise, changes in the climate could overwhelm humanity and nature’s ability to adapt.
Transformation Strategies: Reduction, Adaptation, or Regeneration? We Need Them All.
Even if humans halted all carbon emissions tomorrow, the effects of climate change would continue to grow. This is why emission reduction, climate adaptation, and climate regeneration strategies are included in the report: it is not enough to only reduce carbon emissions and consumption.
All three are essential in securing a livable future. In forestry for instance, these strategies might look like:
Reduction:
- Reducing deforestation by creating natural reserves and protected lands.
Adaptation:
- Planting drought-resistant or disease-resistant trees in areas suffering from these problems.
Regeneration:
- Creating healthier forests by using sustainable forest management methods to restore native species and regenerate the health of the forest ecosystem.
Sustainable Forest Management
The IPCC report highlights the world’s forests as a key factor in mitigating climate change. The lungs of the planet, forests are the most important tool we have in reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Tropical rainforests in particular stock 50 percent of the world’s carbon.² Sustainable forest management is key to climate change mitigation, and the benefits could affect more than 25 million people around the world.³
“Sustainable forest management is the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality, and their potential to fulfill, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions.” ⁴
What does forest regeneration look like?
Plant a million trees and call it a forest? Not quite. Sustainable forest regeneration relies on thoughtful forest management. For example, to restore forests and ecosystems in a regenerative way, it is important that a variety of native tree species are replanted, not just row after row of one single tree species.
The CarbonABLE Solution
We know that our mission at CarbonABLE is only part of a global climate solution. But we also know our mission will make a difference, for good. We fund sustainable forest management projects that promote forest regeneration using carbon credits and blockchain technology. And we will help to responsibly regenerate the world’s forests, a key strategy brought up by the most recent IPCC report.
In September 2022, the third report is set for release. Inside, a roadmap for humanity to escape climate collapse with mitigation strategies. Maybe you’ll see the CarbonABLE model inside 😉
Sources
(1) https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg2/pdf/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FinalDraft_FullReport.pdf(2) https://research.wri.org/gfr/data-methods#carbon-stocks (3) IPCC report pg 3640 — UNISDR and CRED 2015; Smith et al 2019(4) https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/raw-materials/related-industries/forest-based-industries/sustainable-forest-management_f
Research readings not specifically cited in the text:
https://research.wri.org/gfr/biodiversity-ecological-services-indicators/forest-carbon-stocks#:~:text=The%20world's%20forests%20store%20approximately,and%205%20percent%20in%20litter.&text=In%20total%2C%20this%20is%20equivalent,current%20annual%20fossil%20fuel%20emissionshttps://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/about/frequently-asked-questions/keyfaq1https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/climate/climate-change-ipcc-report.htmlhttps://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/11/SRCCL-Full-Report-Compiled-191128.pdf
