Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry
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Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) is a term often used in climate change topics. Land use, land-use change and forestry all have impacts on the global carbon cycle and as such these activities can add or remove carbon dioxide (or, more generally, carbon) from the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. LULUCF has been the subject of two major reports by the IPCC.
[edit] Climatic impacts of land-use, land-use change and forestry
Land-use change is a large source of CO2 and is thus an important contributor to climate change. IPCC estimates that land-use change (e.g. conversion of forest into agricultural land) contributes a net 1.6 ± 0.8 Gt carbon per year to the atmosphere. For comparison, the major source of CO2, namely emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production amount to 6.3 ± 0.6 Gt carbon per year.[1]
IPCC also states that from 1850 to 1998, about 136 (+ 55) Gt carbon has been emitted as a result of land-use change, predominantly from forest ecosystems. For comparison, 270 (+ 30) Gt carbon has been emitted as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning and cement production[2].
