Moving Past the Fear of Impermanence

Reducing fossil fuel emissions remains paramount in humanity’s journey to a livable future. But we must also work with nature to avoid the worst of climate change. This means protecting, better managing and restoring forests, grasslands, wetlands and agricultural lands around the world—rapidly and at scale. But these solutions only arrive through investment, and carbon markets represent an essential financing mechanism.

Carbon projects should set a high scientific bar for calculating long-term benefit for the climate. One facet under intense scrutiny is whether a forest can store carbon for 100 years. While guaranteeing 100 years of durability may seem daunting, science can help us navigate this complexity. The alternative is ignoring a three-billion-year-old technology called “photosynthesis” that uses sunlight to easily move carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into land-based carbon storage.

Instead of fearing that disaster will strike everywhere, let’s leverage the best-available science to focus investments on places and strategies that are more likely to remain stable. As the science improves, we can increasingly tip the odds in our favor. Here’s how:

1. Reduce the risk of carbon loss.

As the climate crisis worsens, forests should be protected, managed and restored in places where the chance of losing large amounts of carbon is low and where carbon can be recovered quickly if a natural disaster occurs. Our latest science gives unprecedented clarity on where best to restore forest cover for climate. There are even places where increased carbon storage is expected with climate change—as CO₂ fertilization and warming temperatures can both boost growth.

With TNC-led science we are getting better and better at predicting how much and how quickly carbon will be be recovered after disturbance. And we can design interventions with resilience in mind—for example, by planting fire-adapted species or increasing prescribed burning to set up more natural fire regimes.

2. Use risk management mechanisms to compensate.

Risk is and has been part of every aspect of life on earth. From crop and flood insurance to retirement investment accounts and long-term financial instruments like trusts, there are well-established risk control systems that allow us to handle uncertainty.

For carbon markets, simple insurance mechanisms called “buffers” already exist. They can help control the risk of losing carbon in natural disasters for some years to decades, while we develop better solutions. For example, the buffer system used by Verra, which certifies most of the voluntary carbon market, has more than 70 million credits on hand to compensate for reversals yet so far has only been called on a handful of times. These buffer systems are not perfect, and their improvement needs to be informed by better science. Fortunately, scientists are already working on it.

3. Strengthen nature to do what it does best.

This is the case of the DeSeves, one of more than 1,000 families who have signed on to the Family Forest Carbon Program. They joined the program to give their land a new purpose—one that supports climate goals while staying rooted in family values. Managing their forest for carbon storage has become a shared commitment, connecting generations through practical stewardship.

There is no time to waste.