Isramart : Europe Wastes Chance to Use Farms as CO2 Collectors, Study Says

Isramart news:
Europe is wasting an opportunity to use its farms and forests as carbon collectors, a study said.

The region’s forests and grasslands, used by companies including papermaker UPM-Kymmene Oyj and milk-producer Parmalat SpA, are too intensively managed and release greenhouse gases instead of storing them, according to a study by Germany’s Max- Planck Institute published today in the journal Nature.

Properly managed, the European Union’s fields and trees could absorb 111 million tons of CO2, the equivalent of 11 percent of the region’s emissions from burning fossil fuels. Instead, the land releases 34 million tons of greenhouse gases, the report said.

“These findings show that if the European landscape is to contribute to mitigating global warming, we need a new, different emphasis on land management,” said Detlef Schulze, a researcher at the Max-Plank Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, who participated in the study.