Why Nature Restoration Needs to Be a Climate Mitigation Strategy

When we think about climate change, most people think about cutting emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG) . But the fact is that GHG’s stay in the atmosphere for a very long time. If we got to Net 0 emissions today, it would still take thousands of years to get back to pre-industrial levels.

Imagine we are digging a big hole with our increasing emissions. Getting to Net 0 simply would mean we stop digging our hole deeper. Then we would still be at the bottom of the hole. We would still have to climb out. The bad news is that despite all the efforts to decrease emissions, we are still far from Net 0.

We also need strategies to remove GHG’s from the atmosphere. Big tech loves the idea of carbon capture through high tech solutions because they see dollar signs attached to those. But in terms of carbon capture, there is nothing that does the job like nature. The ocean ecosystem absorbs a third of all human made carbon emissions. Forests, grasslands and soils absorb another 30%. These do not end up in the atmosphere. But as we deplete these ecosystems we are losing Earth’s ability to balance her climate and atmosphere.The way these ecosystems work is through the millions of interactions between the living things, microscopic to gigantic, that live in them. As we destroy the habitats and the creatures die off, that balance we have always counted on just doesn’t work anymore. The more we destroy our ecosystems while continuing to emit, the farther away we get from balancing Earth’s energy system.

The other problem is when we reduce nature to a carbon sink, we are really only telling a piece of the story. The value of nature is so much more than carbon sequestration. In my books I explain in detail how the water cycle works to remove heat from the Earth’s surface. The water cycle works through plants, sending water and heat upwards through evapotranspiration. Big trees and small plants do this; tiny phytoplankton do this in the ocean. Plants emit aerosols when they transpire, tiny particles which cause clouds and rain to form. Without clouds and rain, the surface of the Earth would absorb even more of the sun’s energy. Clouds reflect the sun’s warmth back into the upper atmosphere. Ice also reflects heat away from the Earth. We think that it is cooler in the forest just because of the shade, but the truth is that the forest is actively removing heat through evapotranspiration. When there’s clouds, less heat gets to the Earth’s surface, more is reflected back into space.

In Restoring the Pillars of Life I tell the story of how the climate scientist, Antonio Donato Nobre met an Indigenous shaman, Davi Kopinawa, who said ‘’ Doesn’t the white man know that if he destroys the forest there will be no more rain? And if there is no rain there will be nothing to eat or drink?” Nobre marvelled that this indigenous man knew what he and his scientific team had taken decades to discover and what most of the world doesn't yet understand. Nobre is fighting to help the world understand that if we reach the tipping point of deforestation in the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, the whole world will suffer from greater climate extremes.

In the above photo we see two photos of the same site in 2012 and in 2022, Mainsprings, an Ecosystem Restoration Community in Tanzania. Nature restoration is the most cost effective thing we can do to rebalance our climate system, it has countless benefits for living beings. Abundant life is good for human economies. This site has gone from a barren landscape to one that is producing food and providing habitat for humans and other creatures. It is our best shot at resilience to climate extremes, nature mitigates drought and floods. When it rains too much, the land absorbs the excess water and stocks it for when it is hot and dry. Nature restoration happens quickly. Within a decade, there are palpable benefits. The land is cooler and more productive. Numerous sites around the world have demonstrated the effects of increased cooling, more resistance to climate extremes and more productivity.

The world must recognize that our climate strategies must have three legs: emissions reduction, of course; GHG removal, yes; but without regeneration of our natural ecosystems we will never make it in time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The good news is that everyone, everywhere can work to restore our small corner of the natural world and make our community aware of its importance. Yes, we need our governments and big corporations to change, but a groundswell of people have the power to organize and impact the communities they live in. When the people lead, governments will follow.