Title
The essential carbon service provided by northern peatlands
Author(s)
Harris, Lorna I; Richardson, Karen; Bona, Kelly A; Davidson, Scott J; Finkelstein, Sarah A; Garneau, Michelle; McLaughlin, Jim; Nwaishi, Felix; Olefeldt, David; Packalen, Maara; Roulet, Nigel T; Southee, F Meg; Strack, Maria; Webster, Kara L; Wilkinson, Sophie L; Ray, Justina C
Published
2022
Publisher
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Published Version DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2437
Abstract
Northern peatlands have cooled the global climate by accumulating large quantities of soil carbon (C) over thousands of years. Maintaining the C sink function of these peatlands and their immense long-term soil C stores is critical for achieving net-zero global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 to mitigate climate warming. One-quarter of the world’s northern peatlands are in Canada, with these mostly intact ecosystems providing a global C service that is increasingly recognized as a critical part of nature-based solutions to combat climate change. However, land-use change and other disturbances threaten these globally important stores of “irrecoverable C” (that is, soil C lost to disturbance that will take centuries to recover). Inadequate policy safeguards to avoid conversion and degradation, and the limited quantification and reporting of peatland greenhouse-gas emissions and removals, increase the vulnerability of these peatlands. Targeted policies from local to global scales will be needed for improved decision making and incentivizing long-term C management of northern peatlands.

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PUB27181