Forests and climate change: a report for WWF International November 1998

Abstract

Global change poses enormous challenges to those responsible for managing the world's forests. There is perhaps no other ecosystem that is so closely linked to, and affected by, human induced changes to climate - being regarded simultaneously as a victim, a villain and a potential saviour. Concentrations of carbon dioxide methane and other greenhouse gases are rising at an accelerating rate in the atmosphere, largely as a result of emissions from human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. This increased air pollution is thought to be having a dramatic impact on climate, both by raising average global temperatures and by increasing extreme events such as droughts and storms. The current global warming trend is agreed by scientists to be at least partially the result of increasing human induced emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Forests will both suffer from these changes and, when managed badly, can themselves be the cause of some climate change through carbon dioxide released during forest fires and deforestation. However, forest management is now also increasingly seen as potential way of helping to halt or even reverse climate change, adding further confusion to what was already a complex situation.