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The forests of Europe, North America and the former Soviet Union have
expanded so much in the past four decades that they are counteracting the
greenhouse effect, according to the Washington think-tank Resources for
the Future. The findings, published in the journal Ambio, could provide
ammunition for industrialised countries that are reluctant to cut their
emissions of carbon dioxide from power stations and car exhaust.

Roger Sedjo, author of the study, says that his conclusions ‘while in
conflict with the conventional view of broad global deforestation, are supported
by overwhelming evidence from a variety of sources across the entire northern
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Forests contain roughly four-fifths of the carbon stored above ground
and in the world’s soils, around 1500 billion tonnes in all. Until now it
has been assumed that the destruction of forests – in the northern hemisphere
during the 19th century, and more recently in the tropics – was adding to
the load of carbon in the atmosphere, in the form of carbon dioxide, the
most important greenhouse gas.

But Sedjo argues that new temperate forests, most planted in the past
40 years, are absorbing at least 700 million tonnes of carbon a year from
the atmosphere. This is almost as much carbon as is released by the destruction
of tropical forests, which Sedjo puts at around 1 billion tonnes a year.

Sedjo claims that his findings ‘go a long way towards explaining’ the
mystery of the missing carbon sink. Atmospheric chemists have been bemused
by what happens to the roughly 7 billion tonnes of carbon released into
the atmosphere by pollution and forest destruction each year. Some 3 billion
tonnes stays in the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect, while between
2 and 3 billion tonnes is absorbed by the oceans. But the rest apparently
disappears.

Now it seems this missing carbon is accumulating in new temperate forests
close to the great power plants and highways where it is emitted.

Parts of Europe, says Sedjo, ‘began their forest expansion as early
as the mid-1800s . . . 24 of the 25 European countries increased their forest
area between 1954 and 1984′. Sweden has 50 per cent more growing forests
than 50 years ago. New European policies to ‘set aside’ farmland to reduce
grain mountains will create more forests.

In the US, land released from farm production is also being returned
to forests. The forested area of New Hampshire has increased from 50 per
cent to 86 per cent. Forest cover in the former Soviet Union has risen the
most, by more than 70 million hectares, three times the size of Britain,
in 25 years.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is currently drawing
up its own estimates of the role of forests in the greenhouse effect. If
it confirms Sedjo’s findings, the way will be open for industrial nations
to claim that they are unfairly pilloried for their contribution to the
accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Climate Convention, which calls on nations to stabilise their contribution
leaves nations the option of achieving this either by reducing emissions
or by increasing carbon ‘sinks’ such as forests.