Photo Credit: Earth.com
It’s a small boost, but it’s still a boost.
In a recent study, researchers were surprised to see that wood products such as paper, lumber, furniture, etc., are offsetting just 1% of annual global carbon emissions. The study was performed across 180 countries, which produced results indicating that 335 million tons of carbon dioxide were offset by wood products.
The results showed countries that their timber industries could be used to offset some of their carbon emissions. And, with countries scrambling to keep climate change under control, this is one way to help in that process. As promising as this is, researchers were quick to point out that this really is just a small fraction of what is needed to curb climate control.
The question moving forward is whether or not we can continue to consume wood products and have climate change benefits attributed to said consumption. Countries are looking for net-negative emissions strategies and this is one that could prove beneficial to many of them, especially timber rich ones.
The more that wood products are being produced, the more carbon is being added to the pool in the country. The products will eventually decay, but if wood is not being produced at the rate to offset the emissions, there is fear that the carbon pool will become a net source of emissions.
The goal of the study is to make countries aware of what is happening and assess how they can be helped in predicting their future emissions. The more public the data can become, the more countries can do to pay attention to ways that carbon is being emitted and its contribution to climate change.
