SCI Climate Science

The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Climate Science team uses climate information and climate risk assessments to inform and support conservation and adaptation planning that promotes resilience for people and nature. To help this effort succeed, global maps that enable consistent avoided forest conversion carbon accounting are needed. Avoided forest conversion offers the second highest climate mitigation potential (behind reforestation) of the 20 natural climate solution pathways. Importantly, avoided forest conversion could deliver over forty percent of total emissions reductions at < $10 per ton CO2e. Low cost solutions are critical for the rapid transition to the low-carbon economies needed to meet climate goals. This project will improve upon prior approaches to forest conversion carbon accounting by incorporating albedo (the amount of energy absorbed by the Earth’s surface) impacts on local and global climate in generating estimates. The new and improved data will be incorporated into TNC’s naturebase.org website, a publicly available natural climate solution web platform.