Recent news on the European greenhouse gas balance
(Schulze et al., 2009)
International climate treaties recognize the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by crediting regions and countries for their sinks and sources of GHGs. The Carboeurope-IP programme has tackled this problem, and collected new ecosystem and atmospheric measurements at a network of stations. By combining these new data with extensive biomass, soil C and fossil fuel inventories, researchers from Carboeurope-IP made the synthesis of the GHG-balance of Europe.
Based on the estimated carbon dioxide (CO2) sink in natural ecosystems, Europe enjoyed a near 10% discount on the total emissions from fossil fuel burning and land-use. This CO2 sink lies mainly into growing forests which accumulate biomass, and into grasslands which accumulate C in the soil. Croplands are a small source of CO2 to the atmosphere, due to the smaller input of C to soils and to tillage which accelerates soil C decomposition. However, the CO2 balance is not the same as the GHG balance, and the other main GHGs have not been included in the balancesheet in the past. When including the emissions of CH4 and N2O, the GHG sink of the EU-25 effectively disappears. Only eastern Europe remains a sink.
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