Deforestation and climate change facts for kids
Deforestation is one of the primary causes of climate change. Deforestation is often described as the changing of land from forested to non-forested by means both natural and unnatural. Deforestation comes in many forms: wildfire, agricultural clearcutting, livestock ranching, and logging for timber, among others. The more trees are removed, the larger the effects of climate change are. Some of the effects of climate change, such as wildfires, insect outbreaks, invasive species, and storms increase deforestation.
Forests cover 31% of the land area on Earth and annually 75,700 square kilometers (18.7 million acres) of the forest is lost. According to the World Resources Institute, there was a 12% increase in the loss of primary tropical forests from 2019 to 2020.
Growing forests are a carbon sink with additional potential to mitigate the effects of climate change.
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Effects of deforestation on climate change aspects
Irreversible deforestation would result in a permanent rise in the global surface temperature. The Amazon rainforest absorbs one-fourth of the carbon dioxide emissions on Earth, however, the amount of CO2 absorbed today decreases by 30% than it was in the 1990s due to deforestation.
Modeling studies have concluded that there are two crucial moments that can lead to devastating effects in the Amazon rainforest which are increase in temperature by 4 °C and deforestation reaching a level of 40%.
Decrease in climate services
Human activity such as deforestation for livestock grazing and fuel wood has led to forest degradation. It has also resulted in ecosystem biodiversity loss. Loss and degradation of forest has a direct impact on the Earth's diverse flora and fauna and, therefore, on climate change because they are the best defense against CO2 buildup in the atmosphere.
Forests are nature's atmospheric carbon sink; plants take in atmospheric carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) and convert the carbon into sugars and plant materials through the process of photosynthesis. The carbon is stored within the trees, vegetation, and soil of the forests. Studies show that "intact forests", in fact, do sequester carbon. Examples of large forests that have a significant impact on the balance of carbon include the Amazonian and the Central African rainforests. However, deforestation disrupts the processes of carbon sequestration.
Burning or cutting down trees reverses the effects of carbon sequestration and releases greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere. Furthermore, deforestation changes the landscape and reflectivity of earth's surface, i.e. decreasing Albedo. This results in an increase in the absorption of light energy from the sun in the form of heat, enhancing global warming.
Another important thing is that when a climate changes, species still have to maintain the climatic conditions (temperature, humidity) they are accustomed to, which forces them to shift their geographic range and move to new habitats. Humans will also be impacted by the loss of biodiversity as food, energy, and other 'ecosystem goods and services' patterns are disrupted.
Changes in rainfall
As a result of climate change, precipitation is reduced. This means having a hotter and drier climate, and a longer dry season. Such changes in climate have drastic ecological and global impacts including increases in severity and frequency of fires, and disruption in the pollination process that will likely spread beyond the area of deforestation.
Forest fires
Statistics have shown that there is a direct correlation between forest fires and deforestation. Under unmitigated climate change, by the end of the century, 21% of the Amazon would be vulnerable to post‐fire grass invasion.
Control measures and their effects on climate change
Reducing deforestation
and agroforestry.
Possible methods to reverse the effects of deforestation include reforestation, afforestation and agroforestry.
Afforestation is the planting of trees where there was no previous tree coverage. Although afforestation can help reduce the carbon emissions given off as a result of climate change, natural regeneration tends to be more effective.
Agroforestry is a land use management system in which combinations of trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland. Agroforestry combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land-use systems
Policies and programs
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries
The Bali Action Plan
The Bali Action Plan was developed in December 2007 in Bali, Indonesia. It is a direct result of The Kyoto Protocol of December 1997. One of the key elements of The Bali Action Plan involves a concerted effort by the member countries of The Kyoto Protocol to enact and create policy approaches that incentivize emissions reduction caused by deforestation and forest degradation in the developing world. It emphasized the importance of sustainable forest management and conservation practices in mitigating climate change. This coupled with the increased attention to carbon emission stocks as a way to provide additional resource flows to the developing countries.
Trillion Tree Campaign
The Billion Tree Campaign was launched in 2006 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a response to the challenges of global warming, as well as to a wider array of sustainability challenges, from water supply to biodiversity loss. Its initial target was the planting of one billion trees in 2007. Only one year later in 2008, the campaign's objective was raised to 7 billion trees—a target to be met by the climate change conference that was held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009. Three months before the conference, the 7 billion planted trees mark had been surpassed. In December 2011, after more than 12 billion trees had been planted, UNEP formally handed management of the program over to the not-for-profit Plant-for-the-Planet initiative, based in Munich, Germany.
The Amazon Fund (Brazil)
Considered the largest reserve of biological diversity in the world, the Amazon Basin is also the largest Brazilian biome, taking up almost half the nation's territory. The Amazon Basin corresponds to two fifths of South America's territory. Its area of approximately seven million square kilometers covers the largest hydrographic network on the planet, through which runs about one fifth of the fresh water on the world's surface. Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is a major cause to climate change due to the decreasing number of trees available to capture increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
The Amazon Fund is aimed at raising donations for non-reimbursable investments in efforts to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation, as well as to promote the preservation and sustainable use of forests in the Amazon Biome, under the terms of Decree N.º 6,527, dated August 1, 2008. The Norwegian Government, which is the largest donor to the fund, froze its funding in 2019 over deforestation concerns. Norway has tied the resumption of funding to proof of a reduction in deforestation.
The Amazon Fund supports the following areas: management of public forests and protected areas, environmental control, monitoring and inspection, sustainable forest management, economic activities created with sustainable use of forests, ecological and economic zoning, territorial arrangement and agricultural regulation, preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and recovery of deforested areas. Besides those, the Amazon Fund may use up to 20% of its donations to support the development of systems to monitor and control deforestation in other Brazilian biomes and in biomes of other tropical countries.
Images for kids
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Tropical deforestation – given as the annual average between 2010 and 2014 – was responsible for 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. That was 6.5% of global CO2 emission. International trade was responsible for around one-third (29%) of the emissions. Most emissions – 71% – came from foods consumed in the country that they were produced (domestic demand).
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Forest area net change rate per country in 2020
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Palm oil plantation, Israel
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Biophysical mechanisms by which forests influence climate
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Four-year plan to reduce in deforestation in the Amazon
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