EU farmers exceed region's 'carbon sink'
Source: Agencies |
November 23, 2009, Monday
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Print Edition
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GREENHOUSE gas emissions from European livestock and fertilizers exceed carbon absorption by all the region's trees and soils, underlining the need to cap farms' contribution to climate change, a study showed yesterday.
Plants including trees and grasses suck out of the air the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in a "carbon sink" effect which helps to balance man-made emissions.
But European farms also add to climate change as a result of gas emissions from livestock and fertilizers.
Farming emissions wiped out the region's entire carbon sink benefit from trees and plants, showed the first study putting those two land use numbers together.
"We were surprised about the magnitude," of the net effect, said lead author Detlef Schulze, director of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry.
The study found that EU forests and soil sucked 125 million tons of carbon annually from 2000-2005. That offset 12 percent of just over 1 billion tons of emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Plants including trees and grasses suck out of the air the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in a "carbon sink" effect which helps to balance man-made emissions.
But European farms also add to climate change as a result of gas emissions from livestock and fertilizers.
Farming emissions wiped out the region's entire carbon sink benefit from trees and plants, showed the first study putting those two land use numbers together.
"We were surprised about the magnitude," of the net effect, said lead author Detlef Schulze, director of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry.
The study found that EU forests and soil sucked 125 million tons of carbon annually from 2000-2005. That offset 12 percent of just over 1 billion tons of emissions from burning fossil fuels.
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