Natural Climate Solutions Starting with Forests

​

See: cclusa.org/forest-training

Dana Nuccitelli

E-mail: dana.nuccitelli@citizensclimate.org

@dana1981

June 14, 2022

​

Who is this Guy?

• B.A. in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley, 2003
• M.S. in Physics from UC Davis, 2005
• Research Coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Environmental Scientist
• Climate journalist for SkepticalScience.com (since 2010), The Guardian (2013–2018), Yale Climate Connections (since October 2018)
• NCSE 2016 Friends of the Earth award winner
• Author of 10 peer-reviewed climate science papers
• Author of Climatology versus Pseudoscience

Where We’re at on Future Objectives

1. Reconciliation focus
2. November elections
3. Rolling out more future policy specifics in 2023

Why Start with Forests?

• Potential to achieve significant GHG reductions
• Can address both mitigation and adaptation
• Many potential co-benefits
• Lots of potential coalition partners
• Bipartisan support (everyone loves trees)

What about the Grinch?

Natural Carbon Storage Scales

• Humans have added ~300 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere

​

• Earth’s plants store ~650 billion tons

​

• Earth’s soils store ~2.5 trillion tons

​

Natural Sinks are the Bathtub Drain

Current US Natural Carbon Removal

• Natural sinks in the U.S. remove about 800 Mt of CO2 per year today (12% of annual emissions)
• That number has remained pretty steady in recent decades
• 95% is from trees & forests

Potential Size

• We need about 10 billion tons (Gt) CO2 removal per year by 2050
• To help peak emissions in the short-term
• To offset hard-to-abate emissions from sectors like agriculture, industry, and long-distance transport. The IPCC described this as “unavoidable” & “essential”
• To eventually draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
• Studies agree that cost-effective (<$100/ton) natural solutions could remove ~10 Gt CO2 per year globally (0.3°C), ~1 Gt in the USA
• Forests are big chunk of that: 200–500 Mt per year in the USA
• Permanence is a big challenge: Forests can burn in wildfires, trees can be killed by climate stressors like bark beetles

Critical for meeting U.S. Paris Target

790 Mt

1 Gt

(25% increase)

Forestry Solutions

• Forest ecosystems are the largest terrestrial carbon sink on Earth
• 1.4 trillion live trees in continental U.S. forests (nearly 1/3 of US land area) sequestering ~12% of U.S. annual GHG emissions (73% from private working forests)
• U.S. forest carbon sequestration could increase ~20% by fully stocking all understocked productive forestland (offset another 3% of annual emissions)
• Similar potential from ‘forest management’ (e.g., extending tree harvest cycles to once per 80 years instead of 40 years, reduced impact logging)

Source: https://www.forestcarbondataviz.org/

​

Working vs. Non-Working

Source: https://www.forestcarbondataviz.org/

​

Wood also Stores Carbon

​

​

Cross-laminated timber cuts GHG emissions 26% compared to a concrete building

Wooden Wind Turbines

• Made of stacks of thin veneers

​

• Benefits compared to steel:
• Easier to transport
• Much lower carbon
• As strong but 30% lighter
• Lasts just as long
• Fire resistant

Forestry Opportunities, Challenges

Source: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2010840117

Potential Pitfalls

Other Tree Benefits

• Conserving & restoring depleted forests helps protect biodiversity
• Climate-smart forestry practices can help lessen wildfires
• Replanting with more space between trees, especially in drought
• Thinning dense forests & removing dead trees
• Prescribed burns
• Trees improve air quality and provide cooling
• Especially important in cities as temperatures continue to rise
• Raises the issue of “tree equity”

Tree Equity

• Communities of color have 33% less tree canopy than predominantly white neighborhoods
• Poor communities have 41% less tree canopy than wealthy neighborhoods
• Recent study: in 35 US metropolitan areas, about 36,000 premature deaths could have been avoided over the past 20 years by planting more trees

Forestry Policies

• Expansion of protected areas
• Forest/resource management
• Invasive species
• Wildfire risks
• Increased use of timber as building material
• Reforestation
• Urban tree planting

​

Forestry Policies

• House-Passed Build Back Better:
• $27B for forest research, protection, restoration, recovery, carbon management
• America the Beautiful campaign to preserve 30% of US land by 2030
• Bipartisan forestry legislation:
• Manchin’s America’s Revegetation and Carbon Sequestration Act
• Rural Forest Markets Act (improves private forest management practices)
• FOREST Act (prohibits import of products from illegally deforested land)
• REPLANT Act (funds for USFS reforestation – passed!)
• TREES Act (residential tree planting)
• Save Our Sequoias
• Next Farm Bill renewal: 2023

Bipartisan & Coalition Opportunities

Thank You!

Dana Nuccitelli | Brett Cease

E-mail: dana.nuccitelli@citizensclimate.org� brett@citizensclimate.org

@dana1981 @brettcease

Questions? Ask in CCL’s forums: cclusa.org/forums

www.citizensclimatelobby.org