Leaders from across Africa and Asia will gather this week in Gabon for an international summit on the state of the world’s tropical forests, which experts say are disappearing at an alarming rate.
Many of the discussions will focus on the Congo Basin, which stores more planet-warming carbon than the Amazon but is disappearing.
The Congo Basin is home to the world’s largest tropical peatlands, along with Brazil and Indonesia. The peat swamp forest of the Congo Basin stores around 29 billion tons of carbon – approximately equivalent to three years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions – while the Basin as a whole absorbs nearly 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year . The Basin stretches across six countries- Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
“The Congo Basin is one of the world’s last regions that absorbs more carbon than it emits,” says Doreen Robinson, the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Head of Biodiversity and Land. “We have to find ways to meet critical energy needs for development without sacrificing peatlands and the essential services they provide for people and the economy.”
Peatlands are an effective carbon sink – they absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they produce. Carbon sinks are essential to combating the climate crisis and protecting planetary health. However, peatlands and other carbon sinks are already at risk of collapse due to climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste, warns UNEP’s Becoming #GenerationRestoration report. Without the critical services these ecosystems provide, the climate and nature crisis will only worsen.
Peatlands and the climate crisis
The climate crisis causes more frequent extreme weather events that worsen food and water scarcity, hinder global economies, and threaten human well-being. With human-caused greenhouse gas emissions forecast to rise, ensuring urgent cross-sector action and protecting and sustainably managing peatlands is considered crucial.
Peatland ecosystems play a key role in mitigating the climate crisis. They house and protect rare and vital nature and offer resilience through water capture, storage and much more. According to a UNEP report, protecting and restoring the peatlands that are already degraded can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 800 million metric tons per year.
Peatlands cover only 3 per cent of the global land surface but store an estimated 600 billion tons of carbon – twice as much as in all the world’s forests. This makes them one of the most efficient carbon sink ecosystems and underlines the need to protect them, experts say.
Plants absorb carbon during the process of photosynthesis, which they use to convert into wood, leaves and roots. Because peatlands are water-logged, plant matter takes longer to decompose. This traps more carbon and provides a net-cooling effect.