Climate targets ‘depend on land use’

GLOBAL TARGETS to limit climate change are unlikely to be met due to delays in changing the way people use land, according to new research.

The study, involving researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Edinburgh, suggests efforts to make land management less damaging to the climate need to be stepped up if high levels of climate change are to be avoided.

The 2015 Paris Agreement to limit average global temperature increases to 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels relies heavily on changes in the management of agricultural land and forests around the world, researchers said.

Many countries plan to prevent deforestation or establish new forests over large areas to absorb carbon dioxide from the air, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, changes which would remove up to 25 per cent of the greenhouse gases released by human activity every year.

However, the new research shows that such changes in land use usually take decades to happen, far too slowly to help slow climate change to the agreed level. Dr Calum Brown of KIT, lead author of the study, said: “The 195 countries that signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 set out a range of actions they would take to tackle climate change.

“In most cases little progress has been made in implementing these actions and often the situation has actually worsened in the last three years. Our research suggests that many of the plans for mitigation in the land system were unrealistic in the first place and now threaten to make the Paris target itself unachievable.”

The research highlights deforestation in tropical regions, which has accelerated recently after previously slowing down.