Challenges and perspectives

Wetland Management

Susanna Tol – Wetlands International HQ

Rouergai, China

Preventing and reducing peatland emissions is currently not addressed by the global climate treaty…

Main call:Protect and restore peatlands under a

post-2012 climate framework

• Peatlands are the most space-effective carbon stocks of all terrestrial ecosystems:

Boreal zone: 7 x more carbon per ha; Tropics: 10x

• 3% of the world’s land area, 500 Gt Carbon

Equivalent to all terrestrial biomass, and 2 x the carbon stock in the total forest biomass of the world

Sequestration and long-term storage of carbon require permanent waterlogging. When drained, peatlands become vigorous sources

of carbon dioxide (and nitrous oxide)…

…that continue emitting until all peat is oxidized…

Peatlands are found in 175 countries.Worldwide: 4 million km2

Yakutia, RF Borneo

Kyrgystan Archangelsk, RF

from the tundra …to the tropics…to the mountains…to the sea…

0.3 % of the land surface is responsible for 6 % of the total global anthropogenic CO2 emissions…

Drained peatlands: emission hot spots

Largest emitters from peat drainage (in Mtons/yr, excl. peat extraction and fires)

Indonesia 500

Russia Eur. part 139

China 77

USA (lower 48) 67

Finland 50

Malaysia 48

Mongolia 45

Belarus 41

Germany 32

Poland 24

Russia Asia 22

Uganda 20

P. New Guinea 20

Iceland 18

Sweden 15

Brazil 12

United Kingdom 10

Estonia 10

World picture

• Global CO2 emissions from drainage: 1.3 Gton/a (excl. extracted peat and fires)

• Annex 1 countries: 0.5 Gton CO2

• 15 countries higher peat than fossil fuel emissions

• SE Asia: peat emissions = 70% of fossil fuel emissions

• Sub-Sahara Africa (excl. South Africa) peat emissions = 25% of all fossil fuel emissions

• Since 1990 peatland emissions have increased in 50 countries (including 40 developing countries)

Causes of emissions

• Main hotspot SE Asia: deforestation, fire…and peatland drainage for palm oil and pulp

• Drained and abandoned peatlands in C&E-Europe

• Peatland drainage for agriculture in Uganda• Peatland mining,overgrazing and

desertification in Mongolia• Drainage, overgrazing

and erosion in China

Less emissions can be achieved through peatland rewetting

Germany

Rewetting pilot projects in many parts of the world

UK

Peatland rewetting

Emission reduction potential:

• Gross 2 Gtons on 500,000 km2

• Nett: much less• Half of the CO2 reduction annihilated by CH4

emissions after rewetting

realistic several 100s Mton CO2-eq./yr

• Preventing and reducing peatland emissions is currently not well addressed by the global climate treaty…

Reducing peat emissions in Annex I

Call for LULUCF:

• Mandatory accounting for wetland management• Working towards land-based accounting

Most comprehensive and fair.

Reducing peat emissions in Annex I

Bio-energy:

• Introduced through incentives KP

• Energy and land use are closely interlinked

• Pressure biofuel and food crops on land not being accounted

• And on land for which opportunity costs are low

• Projected peatland drainage for biofuels, windmills, ……

• MANDATORY ACCOUNTING CAN HELP PREVENTING THIS

• And concentrate such land use on degraded land

Reducing peat emissions in Annex I

Reducing peat emissions in non-Annex I

Call for REDD+:

REDD: reducing emissions from organic soils: • Protecting intact natural peatswamp

forests• Restoring degraded peatswamp forests

AND:• emissions from non-forested peat soils

Downloadable from

www.wetlands.org and www.imcg.net

Further reading…