Let's face the facts
Appsilon's core purpose is to advance technology to preserve and improve life on Earth. We want to ensure our work paves the way to a sustainable future. As part of our 🌍 Data for Good initiative, we want to tackle some of the pressing global challenges and shine the light on issues related to the climate crisis.
Trees could be our silver bullet in the fight against climate change. They offer a practical and cost-effective way to reduce the negative impacts of growing carbon emissions.
Forests play a crucial role in capturing and storing away carbon dioxide that would otherwise accelerate global warming. They have the potential to not only be mitigating but even reverse the negative effects of climate change.
As well as acting as carbon sinks, forests also provide a variety of ecosystem services:
COP 26 Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use reaffirmed the critical role of forests “in enabling the world to meet its sustainable development goals” and the need to “reduce, halt, and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030”. The Declaration has 141 signatory governments that together represent around 91 percent of forested areas.
Climate change poses a significant threat to European forests. With rising global temperatures and decreasing precipitation, many tree species may not survive in their current habitat areas.
Even if being outside the climatic optimum does not result in a tree's immediate extinction, it will result in a significant decrease in the tree's growth and reproduction, as well as resistance to threats like fungi and insects, hurricanes, which increases the risk of reducing the tree's capacity to mitigate climate change. Some trees will grow slower and become less adaptive to changes or competition from other species.
Even under the optimistic scenario, Scots pine, which is economically the most important tree species in Europe, will lose approximately 22% of its current area in Europe, and under the pessimistic scenario, it will lose more than 50%! Other species, such as the European larch, will lose more than 80% of their current range. This suggests that the species compositions of forests across the continent may undergo significant changes.
Threat to the European forests is but one of many potential outcomes of unmitigated warming of the planet. But such a shift in the local ecosystem can start a chain reaction affecting the biodiversity of the region, its economy, and people’s everyday lives.
The latest UNEP report shows that the window for avoiding catastrophic changes caused by global warming is closing fast and that national pledges from COP26 make a negligible difference to predicted 2030 emissions. According to the report, policies currently in place point to a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century.
The time to act is now. By raising awareness of the impact climate change might have on European forests and the importance of trees in our fight against climate change, we want to motivate leaders and decision-makers to look for better ways to conserve the forests and save our planet.
European forests are under threat! Share to raise awareness and support tree conservation in Europe.
