Natural climate solutions provide robust carbon mitigation capacity under future climate change scenarios

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 19008 - 12
• Main Authors: Marvin, David C., Sleeter, Benjamin M., Cameron, D. Richard, Nelson, Erik, Plantinga, Andrew J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 03.11.2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/158/2165; 631/158/2445; 631/158/843; Carbon; Carbon dioxide; Carbon sequestration; Climate change; Climate change mitigation; Ecosystem protection; Ecosystems; Emissions; Emissions control; Environmental impact; Farm buildings; Greenhouse gases; Humanities and Social Sciences; Land management; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); United States > US; California
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43118-6

Natural climate solutions (NCS) are recognized as an important tool for governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and remove atmospheric carbon dioxide. Using California as a globally relevant reference, we evaluate the magnitude of biological climate mitigation potential from NCS starting in 2020 under four climate change scenarios. By mid-century NCS implementation leads to a large increase in net carbon stored, flipping the state from a net source to a net sink in two scenarios. Forest and conservation land management strategies make up 85% of all NCS emissions reductions by 2050, with agricultural strategies accounting for the remaining 15%. The most severe climate change impacts on ecosystem carbon materialize in the latter half of the century with three scenarios resulting in California ecosystems becoming a net source of carbon emissions under a baseline trajectory. However, NCS provide a strong attenuating effect, reducing land carbon emissions 41–54% by 2100 with total costs of deployment of 752–777 million USD annually through 2050. Rapid implementation of a portfolio of NCS interventions provides long-term investment in protecting ecosystem carbon in the face of climate change driven disturbances. This open-source, spatially-explicit framework can help evaluate risks to NCS carbon storage stability, implementation costs, and overall mitigation potential for NCS at jurisdictional scales.