Climate change threatens forests: Experts demand urgent forest conversion!

Climate change threatens forests: Experts demand urgent forest conversion!

Schweiz, Land - Scientists and experts have classified the climate balance of forests as problematic as part of the “Second Austrian Mertical Representative of Climate Change”. Today, on May 14, 2025, it becomes clear that higher temperatures accelerate the breakdown of organic material in the forest floor, which leads to the release of CO₂. The forest floor is increasingly seen as a CO₂ emission source, instead of as CO₂ sinks.

The current climatic changes show that drought leads to the fact that forests grow more slowly and thus absorb less CO₂. These observations are in accordance with the increasing greenhouse gas emissions, which according to the Our Central Europe points out that the proposal for a "forest conversion" is discussed as a possible solution. In this context, it is important that proactive forestry measures are taken to adapt the forests to the climatic changes.

The forest plays a double role: on the one hand it is a depression if it absorbs more CO₂ than emits; Otherwise it becomes a source. As part of international climate agreements such as the Paris climate agreement, Switzerland has undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in various sectors, including land use. This also includes regular reporting on the greenhouse gas balance in the national greenhouse gas inventory.

goals for the future

In the period from 2013 to 2020, the forest and wood sector had to reduce emissions by 15.8 % compared to 1990. In fact, however, they were only reduced by 11 %. Nevertheless, the sector contributed to the annual reduction in -0.5 million tons of CO2, which made 6 % of the achievement of targets. In the first Kyoto commitment period, Switzerland was able to fulfill 40 % of its reduction obligations by the forest.

The future is linked to challenges, since the climate agreement of Paris is the target zero emissions by 2050. The balance sheet of the inventory period 2021-2025 will be billed in 2027, whereby the results of the project "Climate protection performance of forest management and wood use in Switzerland (KWHS)" are to be published in 2024. The findings from this study could be crucial for future strategies to combat climate change and to adapt forest management.