The overlapping crises of climate change, mass species extinction, and an unsustainable global food system are on a collision course towards what might best be called an ecological land grab.
Coping with each of these problems will require a different way of using of Earth’s lands, and as experts crunch the numbers it is becoming unnervingly clear that there may not be enough terra firma to go around.A world of narrowing options threatens to pit biofuels, forests and food production against each other.
Earth’s surface temperature has already risen one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, enough to trigger deadly extreme weather and sea-level rise that could swamp coastal megacities by 2100. Nearly all Paris-compatible climate models slot in a major role for a two-step process that draws down carbon by growing biofuels and then captures CO2 released when the plants are burned to generate energy.
A second proposal unveiled last month calls for blanketing an area equivalent to the United States with new trees, nearly 10 million km2.“Forest restoration is the best climate change solution available today,” said Tom Crowther, a professor at the university ETH Zurich. “If we act now, this could cut carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 25 percent, to levels last seen almost a century ago.
The sharpest objections -– which may also apply to BECCS –- had to do with assumptions made about the type and quantity of land available for reforestation.
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