Tag: climate

Australian Forests Are Not Getting the Attention They Deserve in the Battle Against Climate Change.

“Here is the uncomfortable truth: Even if we zeroed out carbon emissions tomorrow—a goal certainly worth pursuing—without massive ecological restoration the climate emergency would persist. Forests aren’t just carbon sinks. They are the planet’s primary climate regulators, its freshwater generators, and the very foundation of continental habitability.” Antonio Donato Nobre
We must not degrade native biodiverse forest in Australia for any reason no matter how persuasive the argument seems. We must do all we can to restore and preserve it!

This blog is an adaptation of a short talk I gave at the Cairns & Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC) Round Table in November 2025.

Picture by Stephen Nowakowski of the Barron River Falls and the surrounding forest.

Forests do a lot of heavy lifting. But what is happening to tropical forests around the world?

Looking at the 3 most important tropical forests around the world, the Amazon Basin is now at a tipping point as a carbon sink. It is barely sequestering more carbon than it produces. The Congo River Basin is still functioning as a net sink despite high levels of clearing. Sadly, South East Asia is now a net carbon producer.  A reminder that the carbon emissions from these areas would be much greater without the intact biodiverse forest that still remains.

What about Australia? Recent studies indicate that our tropical forests may reach a tipping point due to various types of disturbance and damage. Unfortunately, the land of south eastern Queensland has already become a net carbon source. Friedlingstein et al 2024; Global Carbon Project 2024

Net Zero Protocols and Targets

Australia, as did over 100 countries around the world, took on the protocols and targets set by the UN. Each country has been reporting its carbon emissions to the UN according to this plan. This year, only half of these same countries are going to COP30 with the same promises to meet Net Zero Targets. This UN approach to fighting climate change and adopted by Australia is summarized in the diagram below. It is copied from https://www.netzero.gov.au/net-zero. It is my emphasis that has been placed on the word we.

Just how effective is this anthropogenic approach? Well, the world adds a net 5.2 Gt of C to the atmosphere each year.

This diagram illustrates just what is being rewarded under the Net Zero protocol approach. Yet the land with its forests removes 3.2 GtC each year. Millions and millions of dollars have been pumped into the second two technologies for years now and maybe, just maybe, they may eventually have a real effect on carbon emissions. But, in the meantime, we destroy the very thing that it actually working hard for us.

Under the Net Zero protocols, biodiverse forest is not really counted or rewarded.  

An example, after a bushfire, if the fire was not too hot, the forest will regenerate and even would benefit from a little help – no reward. But, if the area is cleared and a plantation is developed, the developer can get lots of saleable carbon credits. The former may continue to sequester carbon for little or no cost and keep doing so for thousands or even millions of years. The latter costs more money, sequesters carbon really well for a generation or so but may end up as a zero-sum game.

If good quality biodiverse forest is knocked down, the carbon accounting systems only records a small penalty for change of land use, but little or no accounting is made for the loss of sequestration that would have continued for hundreds of years.

Why are our Forested Areas becoming Net Carbon Sources Instead of Net Carbon Sinks?

This classic diagram provides a hint.

A biodiverse forested area is a living ecosystem. When too much disturbance happens, the tipping point can occur well before 50% disturbance occurs. In Australia, wind turbines are being built by destroying mountain top forest. The impacted area is far greater than the area cleared. The clearing changes micro weather patterns. Uncovered soil is hotter and the surrounding soil and forest also dries. The mists that used to form on the mountain tops become less frequent and the vegetation changes, becomes more fire-prone, invasive species seize the opening, the biodiversity changes and bats no longer pollinate the trees and spread seeds.

Basically, we are rewarding anthropogenic activities that only last for a generation or two. We must start thinking long term. The following diagram shows the sorts of activities that are rewarded. We ignore the “natural” and even give little weight to the less intensively managed forest.   

ref: Source: Friedlingstein et al 2024; Global Carbon Project 2024,

Biodiverse Forests are More than Simply Carbon Sinks

I found some wonderful words by a retired Brazilian scientist who has summarised the issues so eloquently. I presented some of his words in my presentation in 2 slides as shown below.

A Big Hole in Net Zero Thinking

As described by the UN, Land “plays a key role in the climate system” as an essential carbon sink because its surfaces, such as forests, regulate the planet’s temperature and help to store carbon. In the last decade alone, land-based ecosystems absorbed around 30 per cent of the carbon emissions generated by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuel. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/land

This approach does not match the UN Net Zero approach as only direct anthropogenic activities to ease Climate Change can be counted.

Checking the Meaning of Net Zero

A deeper look at the wording of Net Zero statements puts little emphasis on Nature’s role in lowering GHG. For example, note the following Australian wording, with emphasis on “we”.

Net zero means balancing the amount of emissions WE produce with those WE remove from the atmosphere.

The UN says:

Put simply, net zero means cutting carbon emissions to a small amount of residual emissions that can be absorbed and durably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere.

However, the UN reports use the following explanations:

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR): Refers to anthropogenic activities removing CO2 from the atmosphere and durably storing it in geological, terrestrial or ocean reservoirs, or in products. It includes existing and potential anthropogenic enhancement of biological or geochemical sinks and direct air capture and storage but EXCLUDES natural CO2 uptake NOT directly caused by HUMAN activities.

Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF): A GHG inventory sector that covers emissions and removals of GHGs resulting from direct human-induced land use, land use change and forestry activities.

Ref: https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2024#:~:text=As%20climate%20impacts%20intensify

What is the Effect of Using this Anthropocentric Approach?

Only 3% of the world’s budget for climate change mitigation is spent on forest protection, even though vegetated land surface is removing 30% of the emissions we produce.  As CO2 levels have risen, nature has kept taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, but the system is starting to show real strain for 2 reasons.

  1. We have undervalued natural ecosystems already in existence by not giving their conservation and protection a strong enough voice and role in the definitions of Net Zero. Thus, it becomes OK to knock down parts of a forest to build wind turbines or palm plantations or build a 4- lane highway for COP 30. Net Zero accounting only measures the actual land area cleared but forgets the edge effects that can dry out forest and soil lessening the ability of far greater areas of forest to continue sequestering carbon. Disturbed forest is more susceptible to wildfire and damage from storms leading to yet further degradation.
  • As temperatures climb, the ability to photosynthesise can become weaker in a wide range of plants. Unfortunately, almost all tree species have a C3 type metabolism that is not well adapted to hotter and drier conditions. Australia is lucky to have many C4 plants such as saltbush, spinifex and indeed almost all  of our Australian grasses. C4 crops include sugarcane, pearl millet, corn and sorghum. In some wetter years our savannah lands do a lot of sequestration. They need protection too.

C4 photosynthesis was an adaptation to less water and lower CO2. It is far more efficient in drought and high sunlight and dominates in tropical savanna areas. When grown in the same environment, at 30°C, C3 grasses evaporate approximately 833 molecules of water per CO2 molecule that is fixed, whereas C4 grasses lose only 277. This means that soil moisture is conserved, allowing them to grow for longer in arid environments.

It is possible that if we keep on our current pathway, Australia will turn our forests from net sinks for CO2 to net sources and then we could progress to losing them completely. What a tragedy that would be!  Imagine losing our moist Eastern Australia lands. Forests are a very important part of the water cycle and do a massive job of cooling the Earth and keeping it from drying out. Forests bring rain. Loss of biodiversity within forests degrades and ultimately kills forests. They are complex ecosystems where every living thing plays a role. I will expand the topic of forests as net sinks or sources in a future blog.

Reaching net zero is impossible without nature. In the absence of proven technology that can remove atmospheric carbon on a large scale, the Earth’s vast forests, grasslands, peat bogs and oceans are the only option for absorbing human carbon pollution, which reached  37.4 bn tonnes in 2023. https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2023/executive-summary)

So far Nature has been doing much more to lower CO2 levels than all our anthropogenic efforts.

Why are we wasting money and other resources to build temporary structures by destroying the resource we already have that is busily working to moderate our climate ? How about we save our land from further degradation by using nuclear power in the longer term and gas now as part of a meticulously planned energy transition that includes carefully sited renewables?

The use of nuclear power and gas would help to preserve the land. Gas is a much lower carbon emitter than coal. By using more gas for industrial purposes for tasks that require high heat, a job that renewables cannot do, carbon emissions can be reduced without losing strategic industries we need to build our homes, produce food and export mining products. The Australian Government recognises a role for gas but seems to have done little to ensure a reasonably priced, adequate supply to industry. https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/industry-sector-plan/pathway-2050

Watch Mark Vassella, BlueScope Managing Director and CEO, address The National Press Club of Australia on “Australian gas prices are costing us our manufacturing, jobs, energy transition, and a future made in Australia.” https://youtu.be/HJoVbF1rtGI?si=LdTxvpatAGY-PDjO

We have already done so much damage, because Net Zero policies just don’t address the issues. Theoretically, Australia now has the Nature Repair Scheme which officially began with the Nature Repair Act 2023 which came into effect on December 15, 2023. Implementation finally started in 2025 with the first project improving land by replanting. The scheme is designed to” restore and protect” our natural environment, and participants can earn carbon credits. This scheme does not protect forests. It demands similar actions to Net Zero and still leaves our best remaining forests vulnerable. Our Environmental laws need strengthening not weakening to prevent building renewables in the wrong places and destroy the existing carbon sequestration capacity.

Next time – Are Our Forests Becoming Net Carbon Emitters or Sinks?

What Is Net Zero?

The Official statement by the Australian Government Net Zero Economy Authority means the same as the COP statements:

“Net zero means balancing the emissions we produce with those we remove from the atmosphere. It doesn’t mean eliminating all emissions, but making sure we don’t add more than we take away.”

Reference for the statement above and the diagrams below: https://www.netzero.gov.au/net-zero

Net Zero does not mean that all Green House Gas emissions are zero. Unfortunately, plans in Australia to reach Net Zero are very unbalanced and too simplistic. These plans put weight on emission reduction and sequestration technologies while neglecting the biosphere’s role.

The great diagrams shown below illustrate this more clearly. https://netzeroclimate.org/what-is-net-zero-2/

Is Australia The Lucky Country?

We are lucky in Australia as our land and its biota, our biodiversity, is assisting us to sequester and store a lot of carbon in our forests and savannah lands, both above and below ground level. I will go into this issue and other related issues in greater detail in future blogs.

Meanwhile, we continue to remove trees from our forests, drying out the soil, reducing nature’s ability to help, throwing more carbon into the atmosphere. The new approach to environmental protection currently under Murray Watt encourages destruction of natural systems to build renewables. What a waste! This means all the money spent is not achieving as much as it could be. Let’s put solar on car parks instead of good agricultural land. Let’s build windfarms on brown field sites. Let’s preserve forests rather than find we need to rehabilitate and replace those same forests.

We only have finite resources, money, and materials. We must rigorously evaluate the true cost of various strategies and policies while looking at the whole picture not just isolated pieces of the transition challenge.