Researchers have identified and mapped 139 gigatonnes (Gt) of “irrecoverable carbon” in some of the world’s major forests and peatlands — including the Amazon and the Congo — to avoid catastrophic climate change.

What is Irrecoverable Carbon?

• The concept of ‘irrecoverable carbon’ was introduced in 2020.
• All kinds of ecosystems — lush rainforest, muddy peatland, shady mangroves — contain eons of stored carbon, captured by photosynthesis.
• Per square kilometer, the forests are among the most effective carbon stores in the world; but they’re also some of the most difficult to restore.
• If destroyed, these ecosystems could take decades or centuries to regenerate.
• In other words, the 139 gigatons of carbon contained in these areas are effectively irrecoverable if released due to anthropogenic activities.
• Once released in air, it can be recovered but would take centuries to fully recover or naturally reintegrate.

What is the new research?

• In the new study, researchers have identified and mapped carbon reserves that are “manageable, are vulnerable to disturbance” and cannot be recovered by 2050.
• They held study of peatlands of the Congo Basin and Northern Europe; and in North America, the mangrove swamps of the Everglades and old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.
• 2050 has been set as the deadline for taking global carbon emissions to net zero in order for Earth to avoid warming at 1.5-2 degrees celsius above the pre-industrial levels.
• To mitigate such a warming scenario, it is imperative to conserve the ecosystems with 139 Gt carbon.

Key findings

• Amazon is the biggest carbon sink on earth, holding 31.5 Gt irrecoverable carbon.
• Brazil has the second-largest irrecoverable carbon reserves, after Russia that holds 23 per cent of the total irrecoverable carbon outlay in the world.
• The second-largest reserve of carbon, at 132 Gt, comprise the islands of Southeast Asia, with their equatorial rainforests.
• The Congo basin is the third-largest hotspot of irrecoverable carbon with over 8 Gt of carbon reserves, according to the study.
• Australia, which has become a hotspot for wildfires, is home to 2.5 per cent of the world’s carbon reserve along its coastal mangroves and forests in the southeast and southwest.

Why conserve these forests?

• These regions are already being ravaged by wildfires and exploited for resources by mining and oil industries.
• Since 2010, agriculture, logging and wildfire have caused emissions of at least 4 Gt of irrecoverable carbon.

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