Recent research published in the journal Nature suggest that peatlands in The Congo are a big carbon “powder keg” that is likely to be triggered by the climate crisis that the world is grappling with.
The research indicates that peatlands, which cover at least 17million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, are releasing carbon to the atmosphere instead of storing it as it once did 5,000 years ago when Earth faced severe drought.
Human-caused global heating, scientists now say, could lead to more carbon being released to the atmosphere, something that would accelerate the climate crisis. The study concluded that the drought led to the drop of the water table, exposing peat to the atmosphere and decomposition.
Prof Simon Lewis, from the University of Leeds and University College London, and the lead author of the study says the research brings a brutal warning from the past which, he underscores, is an important message for world leaders gathering at the Cop27 climate talks in Egypt.
“We know today that these peatlands are very close to that tipping point where they could release billions of tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere …We don’t know exactly how close but we do know that for the last couple of decades, droughts have been getting longer in the center of the Congo basin,” he says.
Prof Corneille Ewango at the University of Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who led the expeditions to collect peat samples, says, “the peatlands are more vulnerable than we thought, and everyone must play their role in protecting them. Polluting countries must cut their carbon emissions fast.”
Weighing-in on the findings of the research, Arlette Soudan-Nonault, The Republic of the Congo’s environment minister, said: “It is more than ever essential that rich and polluting countries commit financially to the protection of our peatlands, our biodiversity and local populations. If we want to prevent this gigantic carbon store from turning into a time bomb, our partners must understand that this invaluable planetary ecosystem service cannot remain free forever.”
The research used cores extracted from the peat layers to reconstruct the history of the peatlands. The ratio of hydrogen isotopes in the wax, the scientists said, indicated how much rain was falling at the time the leaves grew.
The results of the study “indicate positive feedback in the global carbon cycle – climate-induced drying in the central Congo basin leads to the release of further carbon from peat to the atmosphere.”
