Heat waves and droughts in the tropics would make life unbearable for people living near felled forests in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa; Climate agreements only tackle half the climate threat to forests
OSLO, Norway (PAMACC News) — An emerging body of research on the non-carbon impacts of deforestation reveals that destroying tropical forests significantly alters the Earth’s delicate energy balance, rainfall, and wind systems, leading to warmer and drier conditions near cleared forests and out-of-whack weather patterns across the globe, according to a new report by leading forest experts to be released at a major global forest gathering on June 27, 2018.
The research suggests these “new” impacts of deforestation, rooted in the flow of solar energy through forests across the upper atmosphere, disruptions to the atmosphere’s chemical cocktail, and dramatic declines in water cycling are just as damaging to the climate as the carbon released into the atmosphere when trees are cut down.
“We’ve known for a long time that chopping down tropical forests spews dangerous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere,” said Nancy Harris, Research Manager of the Forests program at the World Resources Institute and working paper co-author.. “Now we are learning that removing trees from the earth’s surface also throws off the energy, water and chemical balances that make it possible for us to grow food and live our lives in predictable and productive ways. If we continue to cut down trees, we’ll have to rewrite what we know about the weather—and we can forget about global goals to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
The working paper, “Tropical Forests and Climate Change: The Latest Science,” is one of nine studies released today at the opening of the two-day Oslo Tropical Forest Forum, an event hosted by the Norwegian government to celebrate results and identify remaining challenges 10 years after reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) was included in the climate change negotiations, and to advance strategies for mobilizing forests to help achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The working paper synthesizes findings from a slew of recent studies that, when they come together, conclude that large-scale forest loss in any of the three major tropical forest zones— Latin America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa—would lead to a rise in local temperatures, and disruptions to the water cycle locally and half a world away. These studies use sophisticated modeling to determine the physical, chemical and reflective impacts of removing forests from the surface of the earth en masse, and satellites to measure the changes that have already happened. “When you add up these impacts of forest loss, one thing is clear: people living closest to deforested areas face a hotter, drier reality,” said Harris. “These changes won’t hit Brazilians, Indonesians, or Congolese sometime in the future—they are hitting them now, and they’ll only get worse as more forests disappear.”
Areas in the tropics that experienced deforestation in the last decade have seen significant and long-lasting increases in local air surface temperatures. “Observed local temperature impacts of deforestation are in one direction: hotter,” said Michael Wolosin, Forest Climate Analytics’ President and working paper co-author. “Daily average temperatures went up by a degree, and maximum temperatures by 2 degrees C, in just a decade. Over the same period, the global carbon and GHG impact was less than one fifth as much – 0.2 degrees C. Deforestation is wreaking havoc on local climates across the tropics.”
The Amazon region of South America, home of the world’s largest rainforest, would feel the most heat and drought from forest loss. Complete deforestation would lead to regional warming of about two degrees Celsius and a roughly 15 percent drop in annual rainfall. Researchers have already linked the 2015 drought that hit Brazil, impacting people, crops and industry, to forest loss in the Amazon.
“In its focus on ending greenhouse gas emissions, the Paris Agreement only takes the first step in addressing the drastic consequences of deforestation on the climate,” saidWolosin. “If global and national policymakers fail to come up with an action plan for staving off the immediate and debilitating impact of deforestation on local and global weather patterns, they could put the lives of millions in peril. The question is, what’s more important – the short-term income generated from fields after fields of soy or palm oil, or a stable, predictable weather patterns for generations to come?”
Tropical forests drive the global movement of air, water, and heat in diverse ways, leading to profound impacts on the climate. Through the process of evapotranspiration, trees pump water from their roots through their leaves as water vapor, humidifying the air and causing surface cooling. Because forests have more leaf surface area and deeper roots than grasslands or croplands, they cycle more water. The water pumped through a single tree can cause local surface cooling equivalent to 70 kWh for every 100 liters, enough energy to power two household central air-conditioners per day. Removing these trees can lead to local flooding, soil erosion and droughts.
Impacts from these tropical forest cover changes on water and heat cycling extend well beyond the tropical regions themselves through “teleconnections”, associated with the mass movement of air and conditions in the upper atmosphere. An increase in temperature in the tropics due to deforestation generates large upward-moving air masses. When these hit the upper atmosphere they cause ripples, or teleconnections, that flow outward in various directions, similar to the way an underwater earthquake can create a tsunami.
According to one landmark study about this phenomenon, complete deforestation could put the climate in some of the world’s most important agriculture regions off kilter. These variations in rainfall and spikes in temperature could occur across the world. For example, complete deforestation of the Amazon Basin would likely reduce rainfall in the US Midwest, Northwest and parts of the south during the agricultural season. The complete deforestation of Central Africa would likely cause declines in rainfall in the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the US Midwest and Northwest and increase it on the Arabian Peninsula. There could also be precipitation declines in Ukraine and Southern Europe.
“Halting deforestation, allowing damaged forests to grow back, and keeping undisturbed forests intact, are necessary to ensure the stability of the climate” said Frances Seymour, Program Chair of the Oslo Tropical Forests Forum and lead author of Why Forests? Why Now?. “Fortunately, we know a lot about ways to stop deforestation, but developing countries can’t do this alone. Donor countries should ramp up funding of efforts by tropical forest nations to halt deforestation, and address the global consumption, trade and investment patterns that drive forest loss.”
CHIMANINANIi, Zimbabwe (PAMACC News) - Willard Zano, a smallholder farmer at Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme west of Chimanimani district in Zimbabwe looks at water gushing through an irrigation canal and he smiles.
Zano had every reason to smile as the recently rehabilitated irrigation scheme has brought hope to smallholder farmers in this drought ravaged region.
Experts have linked the severity and frequency of the droughts to climate change. And according to the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, enhanced water use efficiency holds key to tackling water scarcity and food security issues.
The rehabilitation of Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme began in 2015 and was completed in 2017 as a collaborative effort of the local farmers, international humanitarian organisation, World Vision and various Zimbabwe government departments.
Chakohwa and other areas along the western parts of Chimanimani district are among the most arid areas in Zimbabwe, characterised by low and erratic rainfall, making rainfed agriculture virtually unsustainable. And Chakohwa Irrigation Scheme was developed to enhance crop productivity and address food security and nutrition in the region.
“This irrigation scheme (Chakohwa Block E) has brought hope to us all,” Zano said. “We are now ready to harvest our first crop of Michigan beans”.
Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme constructed with the support of World Vision Zimbabwe has 33 hectares benefiting 165 smallholder farmers.
The current crop of Michigan beans was grown under contract farming with Zimbabwe’s food processing company, Cairns Foods.
Under the contract farming initiative each farmer received 10 kgs of Michigan bean seed from Cairns Foods while World Vision supported the farmers with 100 kgs of Compound D, 12,5kg of Ammonia Nitrate and 200ml of bravo and 200ml of diathought chemicals. The farmers are assured of a ready market for their beans.
Another farmer in the irrigation scheme, Eliah Machianga weighed in, adding that the farmers in the area had never dreamed of growing cash crops, but the scheme had changed the way farmers do their business.
“We used to grow crops like millet and we never dreamed of growing cash crops like beans. The irrigation scheme has changed everything. We are expecting to grow tomatoes after harvesting beans,” he said.
Machianga said he would now be able to pay school fees for his children after selling his beans.
“Now I’m no longer worried about how I’m going to get school fees for my children and how I’m going to feed them because this irrigation scheme will bring money to us,” Machianga said.
However, Zano was quick to express fear that with the droughts becoming frequent and severe, the river which supply water for the irrigation would also soon run out of enough water for all the farmers.
“Our best option is to drill boreholes to supply water to the irrigation scheme. Harnessing underground water is the best way to go …we are not sure how long the water in the river will last,” Zano said.
World Vision Zimbabwe operations director, Khumbulani Ndlovu said the irrigation project was developed to assist local farmers and ensure they start to produce and create market linkages.
“The farmers and their children benefit through improved nutrition and household income,” Ndlovu said.
In 2016 and 2017, World Vision Zimbabwe supported other livelihoods projects, including nutrition gardens, micro irrigations schemes and three weirs benefiting more than 600 households in Chimanimani district.
The construction of the weirs was done to harvest water for irrigation in collaboration with the USAID funded Enhancing Nutrition, Stepping up Resilience and Enterprise (ENSURE) grant which was aimed at responding to the El Nino induced drought that affected communities between 2015 and 2016.
And in partnership with the Zimbabwe’s department of Irrigation and the Mhakwe community in Chimanimani, World Vision is developing Shinja Irrigation Scheme Shinja, covering 40 hectares benefiting 150 smallholder farmers.
An engineer with the Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture, Praisegod Jiji told farmers during the commissioning of Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme that the government with the support of various partners was stepping up efforts to develop irrigation schemes in the country’s dry areas to fight climate change induced food insecurity
“We want to turn all dry areas into wet areas through irrigation development,” Jiji said.
Chimanimani acting district administrator, Lloyd Kasima said he was happy with the support the government was getting from World Vision Zimbabwe to develop irrigation projects in the district.
Kasima, said the irrigation scheme should be fully utilised to enhance food security in the area.
“This is your project (irrigation scheme) and you must fully utilise it and jealously guard it,” Kasima told the farmers.
ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Hundreds of illegally imported mattresses confiscated by Ghana’s customs authority were recently burnt openly at a landfill site.
The destruction of the impounded goods is in line with laws prohibiting the entry of used mattresses into the country.
It is common place to see thousands of cartons of cigarette, canned food, drugs, wax prints and other restricted or unwholesome goods burnt openly.
Environmental concerns have however been raised about the practice of burning such materials, due to the gases emitted into the atmosphere.
Kwaku Abeeku, who manages Green Energy and Logistics Consults, says Ghana as a signatory to various international agreements on climate change, including the Paris Agreement, must reconsider alternatives to the burning of impounded goods as soon as possible.
“In the case of these open burns, aside the issue of Carbon Monoxide, these imported mattresses are mainly synthetic foams containing petroleum based chemicals and sometimes even fire retardants,” he observed. “Aside emissions, people living in the immediate environments of these burn sites and the country at large are put in a rather bad situation as we commit to global moves in combating climate change”.
Ghana, in its international obligations as a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is guided by its own commitments in the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to climate change mitigation.
As an obligation at the multilateral level, Ghana reaffirms its resolve to support global efforts to define a common future that seeks to safeguard the collective interest of all nations by supporting the 2015 Paris global agreement on climate change.
The implementation of climate actions is expected to help attain low carbon climate resilience through effective adaptation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction.
In 2017, Ghana at the UN Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, pledged the country’s commitment to help combat climate change and adapt to its effects.
The destruction of contraband mattresses, clothing, food and pharmaceutical products through open burning is therefore regarded as negating the country’s commitment to climate mitigation.
Kwaku Abeeku has challenged the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and other institutions responsible for best environmental practices to help halt the open burning of materials.
“I believe the time to make climate and environmental concern a culture and environmental responsiveness a mandatorily measured policy is now,” he said.
ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Hundreds of illegally imported mattresses confiscated by Ghana’s customs authority were recently burnt openly at a landfill site.
The destruction of the impounded goods is in line with laws prohibiting the entry of used mattresses into the country.
It is common place to see thousands of cartons of cigarette, canned food, drugs, wax prints and other restricted or unwholesome goods burnt openly.
Environmental concerns have however been raised about the practice of burning such materials, due to the gases emitted into the atmosphere.
Kwaku Abeeku, who manages Green Energy and Logistics Consults, says Ghana as a signatory to various international agreements on climate change, including the Paris Agreement, must reconsider alternatives to the burning of impounded goods as soon as possible.
“In the case of these open burns, aside the issue of Carbon Monoxide, these imported mattresses are mainly synthetic foams containing petroleum based chemicals and sometimes even fire retardants,” he observed. “Aside emissions, people living in the immediate environments of these burn sites and the country at large are put in a rather bad situation as we commit to global moves in combating climate change”.
Ghana, in its international obligations as a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is guided by its own commitments in the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to climate change mitigation.
As an obligation at the multilateral level, Ghana reaffirms its resolve to support global efforts to define a common future that seeks to safeguard the collective interest of all nations by supporting the 2015 Paris global agreement on climate change.
The implementation of climate actions is expected to help attain low carbon climate resilience through effective adaptation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction.
In 2017, Ghana at the UN Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, pledged the country’s commitment to help combat climate change and adapt to its effects.
The destruction of contraband mattresses, clothing, food and pharmaceutical products through open burning is therefore regarded as negating the country’s commitment to climate mitigation.
Kwaku Abeeku has challenged the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and other institutions responsible for best environmental practices to help halt the open burning of materials.
“I believe the time to make climate and environmental concern a culture and environmental responsiveness a mandatorily measured policy is now,” he said.
