Towards more effective nature-based climate solutions in global forests

William R. L. Anderegg (), Libby Blanchard, Christa Anderson, Grayson Badgley, Danny Cullenward, Peng Gao, Michael L. Goulden, Barbara Haya, Jennifer A. Holm, Matthew D. Hurteau, Marysa Lague, Meng Liu, Kimberly A. Novick, James Randerson, Anna T. Trugman, Jonathan A. Wang, Christopher A. Williams, Chao Wu and Linqing Yang
Additional contact information
William R. L. Anderegg: University of Utah
Libby Blanchard: University of Utah
Christa Anderson: World Wildlife Fund
Grayson Badgley: CarbonPlan
Danny Cullenward: University of Pennsylvania
Peng Gao: University of North Carolina Wilmington
Michael L. Goulden: University of California, Irvine
Barbara Haya: University of California, Berkeley
Jennifer A. Holm: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Matthew D. Hurteau: University of New Mexico
Marysa Lague: University of British Columbia
Meng Liu: University of Utah
Kimberly A. Novick: Indiana University
James Randerson: University of California, Irvine
Anna T. Trugman: University of California, Santa Barbara
Jonathan A. Wang: University of Utah
Christopher A. Williams: Clark University
Chao Wu: Tsinghua University
Linqing Yang: University of Utah

Nature, 2025, vol. 643, issue 8074, 1214-1222

Abstract: Abstract Terrestrial ecosystems could contribute to climate mitigation through nature-based climate solutions (NbCS), which aim to reduce ecosystem greenhouse gas emissions and/or increase ecosystem carbon storage. Forests have the largest potential for NbCS, aligned with broader sustainability benefits, but—unfortunately—a broad body of literature has revealed widespread problems in forest NbCS projects and protocols that undermine the climate mitigation of forest carbon credits and hamper efforts to reach global net zero. Therefore, there is a need to bring better science and policy to improve NbCS climate mitigation outcomes going forward. Here we synthesize challenges to crediting forest NbCS and offer guidance and key next steps to make improvements in the implementation of these strategies immediately and in the near-term. We structure our Perspective around four key components of rigorous forest NbCS, illuminating key science and policy considerations and providing solutions to improve rigour. Finally, we outline a ‘contribution approach’ to support rigorous forest NbCS that is an alternative funding mechanism that disallows compensation or offsetting claims.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09116-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:643:y:2025:i:8074:d:10.1038_s41586-025-09116-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09116-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().