Today at Compass we are really excited to be posting the winner of our Sixth Form Blog Competition. This fantastic piece was written by Barnaby Cansdale from Concord College, and answers the question ‘What is the most effective policy that governments can enact to tackle climate change?’
We are also excited to announce, and quite fitting with Barnaby’s piece, our collaboration with Zero Carbon for a series of articles in honour of Green Week, so watch this space for more amazing content!! Without further ado, over to Barnaby!
What is the most effective policy that governments can enact to tackle climate change?
It’s 2021. Two great challenges grip the world: tackling COVID-19 and its associated fallout, and climate change. Whilst the latter may have had its attention shifted by the former as of late, it’s no secret that climate change still poses an existential threat to our planet and to future generations.
But what if there was a solution that could not only help countries tackle climate change but also assist in their recovery from COVID-19 through job creation and improved wellbeing- making good on the pledge of many world leaders to ‘build back better’?
To take action most effectively against climate change, I believe governments should prioritise the retainment and restoration of natural habitats and greenspaces. Although this would mean different things for each country, a unified global approach to protect greenspaces would create a long-term strategy to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, keep emissions low, and prevent the most serious impacts of our changing climate.
Our greenspaces are our world’s first line of defence when it comes to fighting climate change. Plants photosynthesise and take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, storing it long-term. This is a vital transfer that helps to absorb human-originated emissions in the atmosphere. Restoring and preserving these greenspaces would ensure they continue to play this important role and don’t become carbon sources in the future.
Individual countries would of course need to make decisions on restoration based on which natural habitats are native to their country. The UK, for example, has wetlands and peatlands whilst other countries, such as Russia and Brazil, have forests. The UK government has already started a peat restoration scheme, reviving 5 pilot areas of peatland[1]. It’s estimated that England’s peatlands alone store 580 million tonnes of carbon so it’s vital these natural habitats and greenspaces, in all countries, are protected to ensure they remain carbon sinks.
However, it isn’t just the retainment of existing greenspaces, but also restoration and expansion that can go a long way to tackle climate change. I believe governments should engage in mass afforestation efforts to plant hundreds of billions of trees across the world that would create new areas of woodland and increase the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
This is already proven to have a great effect. A research study from ETH Zurich, found that a worldwide tree planting program of 1.2 trillion trees could remove up to two-thirds of all human-originated emissions in the atmosphere[2]. The research leader, Prof. Tom Crowther said the evidence showed forest restoration ‘isn’t just one of our climate change solutions, it is overwhelmingly the top one’.
These new forests and preserved greenspaces wouldn’t just help us tackle climate change; they’d bring much wider benefits too. Biodiversity could be maintained through the saving of natural habitats for endangered species. They’d also be hugely beneficial to the world’s recovery from COVID-19. Rising unemployment means there’s a greater need for secure work, particularly for low-income families. Retaining and restoring greenspaces would create clean, green jobs as workers would be required to plant trees and manage landscapes. This would undoubtedly bring broader economic benefits with the development of greenspaces for controlled tourism- allowing people to experience and learn about nature without disrupting or destroying it.
If there’s anything the past year has taught us, it’s the importance of going outside and being in nature. As a result, preserving and restoring our greenspaces would not only safeguard the planet for future generations, but help maintain the health and wellbeing of people all around the world today.
References:
[1] https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2019/08/12/peat-pilots-set-to-revive-english-peatlands/
Disclaimer: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR OPINIONS OF COMPASS MAGAZINE AS A WHOLE OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY.
Picture credits: Sophie John.