As forests age, lessened new growth causes a slowdown in carbon capture. Combined with a shrinking of viable forest land due to climate change and expanding human development as well as increases in emissions, forests are less and less able to keep up. Will they continue to fall?
Some say we're only a couple of years from a precipitous fall in effectiveness, eventually reversing forests from net sinks to sources of emissions:
Slowly increasing usage of harvested wood products (still dramatically below rates from a few decades ago) are a promising sign of softening this trend, as harvested wood, even including processing and transportation, often has a net carbon sink effect and is significantly better than steel, concrete, and plastic production which are all large sources of emissions. Moreover, harvested forests that are protected and reseeded allow for freshened capture as the most efficient part of their sequestration in the carbon cycle is renewed. But still, these trends aren't moving fast enough to counteract the issues laid out above.
Here's a a brief snapshot of the current status:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/sites/default/files/2022-04/hot-topic-carbon-status.pdf
This question will use USDA / Forest Service data if available, but will consider other official and respected sources when presented.
Resolves YES if such data says that forests account for less than 10% of emissions in the U.S., averaged over the presented range (today's available estimations say forests offset 10-15%, so that's a score of 12.5% once averaged), for any period between now and the end of 2028. Otherwise, resolves NO shortly after closing at the end of 2030, to give some time for such research to surface.
1,000
1.00