Forests and climate change. A venomous or amorous embrace?

Lorenzo Ciccarese - Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA), Rome, Italy. Dipartimento Conservazione della Natura

The paper examines the multifaceted relationships between climate change and forests. On one side, climate change is altering forest distribution, composition, structure and functions and phenology of forest species. On the other side, forests and forestry offer significant climate change mitigation options, including measures that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, especially through reducing deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; increase the rate of greenhouse-gas removals from the atmosphere (e.g, through afforestation, reforestation, forest restoration and changes to forest management practices); and substitute forest products for fossil fuels or products requiring fossil fuels in their production. Climate change adaptation measures in the forestry sector are essential both to climate change mitigation and for underpinning sustainable development

Because of this, forests feature prominently in the climate change past and ongoing negotiations on commitments of countries under the United Nations agreements to combat climate change.

The forestry sector has much to gain by using existing political support and emerging financial opportunities from the climate change policies to take appropriate action. Nevertheless, the use of forests for climate change mitigation and adaptation also poses a number of unique problems, such as long-term climate benefits, and ownership and fair allocation of these benefits, that need to be confronted.