Deriving a justified budget for peatland rewetting – Applying the German coal phase-out as a blueprint

• Sommer, Pia ^[1] ; Lakner, Sebastian ^[1] ; Nordt, Anke ^[2] ; Tanneberger, Franziska ^[2] ; Wegmann, Johannes ^[3]
  1. [1] University of Rostock

     University of Rostock

     Kreisfreie Stadt Rostock, Alemania

     
  2. [2] Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald, partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre (GMC), Germany
  3. [3] Thünen Institute of Rural Studies, Braunschweig, Germany

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• Localización: Land use policy: The International Journal Covering All Aspects of Land Use, ISSN 0264-8377, ISSN-e 1873-5754, Nº. 147, 2024
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Carbon emissions of peatlands drained for agriculture and forestry contribute more than 7 % to total GHG emissions in various countries worldwide. Hence, reducing these emissions by ending peatland drainage is a significant contribution to a transition towards carbon neutrality and being in line with the Paris Agreement. To achieve this goal, swift action is needed. Using Germany as a case study, we scrutinize whether the German coal phase-out can serve as a ‘blueprint’ to end drainage on agriculturally used peatlands, using six categories (political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal). We also calculate a politically justified budget for a peatland drainage phase-out comparable to the coal phase-out in terms of the socially acceptable mitigation of CO2 emissions. Our results suggest that the current pace of rewetting is too slow in comparison to a rewetting path following the Paris Agreement and would create an area gap of about 560,000 ha and a resulting CO2 emission gap of 84.6–148 Mt CO2 by 2029. We show that both, peatland drainage phase-out and coal phase-out, are socio-technical transitions which require governmental intervention and a guided-level perspective. For a governed peatland drainage phase-out in Germany which is 1.5°C compatible, we determine a politically justified total budget between 13.8 and 16 billion €.