The Uncomfortable Balance Between Biodiversity and Carbon Capture
RFF Senior Fellow James Boyd shares his insights on balancing emissions reduction efforts with biodiversity to battle climate change.
"'But increasingly,' [James Boyd] says, 'we’re seeing nature-versus-nature tradeoffs.'
Biofuels, he adds, are an extremely good example – not just in agriculture, but in forestry. 'Forests are incredibly able to soak up carbon,' he says. 'If we could convert some of that into energy and thereby displace fossil fuels, that is in one sense good for the environment. But you have to think what harvesting those trees means. You can affect water resources and species.'"
