Research publication - Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) which concluded that warming of the earth’s climate is now unequivocal, and that it is clear that this is due to emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities, particularly from the last half of the 20th century onwards (IPCC 2013). Atmospheric concentrations of the GHGs, which include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), are higher than any time over the last 650,000 years. Rapid increases in the emissions, especially in Asia, of short-lived gases such as sulphur dioxide that have a net cooling effect may temporarily slow down the warming, but are no structural solution (Kaufmann et al. 2011; Klimont et al. 2013).