Kirschbaum, M.U.F. (2006). Temporary carbon sequestration
cannot prevent climate change. Mitigation
and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 11: 1151-1164.
Abstract. Storing carbon in biosphere sinks
can reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the short term.
However, this lowers the concentration gradient between the atmosphere and the
oceans and other potential carbon reservoirs, and consequently reduces the rate
of CO2 removal from the atmosphere. If carbon is released again from
that temporary storage, subsequent atmospheric CO2 concentrations
will, therefore, be higher than without temporary carbon storage. It is thus
important to analyse whether temporary carbon storage in biosphere sinks can
mitigate climate-change impacts. To analyse that, climate-change impacts need
to be quantified explicitly.
Impacts can be quantified:
1) as the instantaneous effect of increased temperature;
2) through the rate of temperature increase;
3) as the cumulative effect of increased temperatures.
The analysis presented here
shows that temporary carbon storage only reduces climate-change impacts related
to the cumulative effect of increased temperature and could even worsen impacts
mediated via the instantaneous effect of temperature or the rate of temperature
change. This applies under both high and low greenhouse-gas emission scenarios.
Because temporary carbon storage improves some, but worsens other,
climate-change impacts, it achieves very little on average. For greenhouse
mitigation, it is, therefore, not warranted to provide policy incentives for
temporary carbon storage.
Key words: Biosphere; carbon accounting; carbon cycle; carbon sink; impacts; mitigation; permanence; tonne-year accounting.
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