Carbon dioxide here to stay

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17 juli 2012 | 9% of today’s global temperature increase can be traced to CO2 emissions in pre-industrial times, American researchers find. Accounting for climate change this way may also have a political impact on international negotiations on CO2 emissions.

Land use changes have caused emissions long before theIndustrial Revolution,” Julia Pongratz and Ken Caldeira from therenowned Carnegie Institution for Science find in their recentlypublished paper.

By turning forests into agricultural land, CO₂ wasemitted through two channels. Firstly, burning the wood releasedcarbon dioxide into the air. Secondly, roots and wood productscontaining carbon decayed slowly over year and centuries.

Political impact

“Just as the relatively small amounts of CO₂ emittedmany centuries ago continue to have impacts on atmosphericCO₂ concentrations and climate today, the relativelylarge amounts of CO₂ we are emitting today will continueto have relatively large impacts on atmospheric CO₂concentrations and climate many centuries into the future,” theauthors conclude.

Accounting for CO₂ emissions in this way may alsohave an impact on international climate change negotiations. “Wefind that accounting for preindustrial LUC emissions results in ashift of attribution of global temperature increase from theindustrialized countries to less industrialized countries, inparticular South Asia and China, by up to 2-3%, a level that may berelevant for political discussions.”