Abstract
Analysing past trends of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remains indispensable to the understanding of current GHG emissions, thereby enabling prediction of future emissions as well as development of their mitigative pathways. This study quantified GHG emissions within the Forest and Other Land Use (FOLU) subsector in Malawi for the period 2011 to 2020. Results indicate that Malawi’s GHG emissions in the FOLU subsector fluctuated but decreased by 0.84 MtCO2e (13%) from 2011 to 2020, averaging to −1.3% annually. The GHG emissions of different categories within the subsector were highly significant ( p < 0.001 ) and contributed the highest (99.72%) of the total variation. Forestland contributed the highest (74%) of the subsector category emissions, followed by biomass burning (19%). The uncertainties for the estimated GHG emissions were low (<15%). This shows that the estimated GHG emissions within the FOLU subsector were significantly minimised. Notable interventions that have abated the emissions include afforestation and natural/assisted regeneration; protection and conservation of protected areas through the REDD+ mechanism; establishment of seed banks for raising drought-tolerant tree species; and breeding of fast-growing and drought-tolerant tree species; as well as screening of disease and pest-resistant species and promotion of biological control.
Highlights
Climate change, largely attributed to anthropogenic activities, remains a critical global phenomenon that attracts the attention of policy makers as well as researchers in all dimensions. is challenge has triggered a nexus of problems and constraints that hinge on societal, cultural, gender, and ecological dynamics
A Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) associate, categorises key sectoral sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as follows: (i) Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), (ii) Waste, (iii) Energy, and (iv) Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) [7], while the AFOLU sector is the key contributor of GHG released into the atmosphere, and the Forestry and Other Land Uses (FOLU) subsector activities are affected by climate change and
Years contributed only 0.12% to the total variation (Table 1). e emissions fluctuated but decreased by 0.84 MtCO2e (13%) from 2011 to 2020, averaging to −1.3% annually (Figure 2). e present results in the decrease of GHG emissions in the FOLU subsector are slightly higher compared to the previous results (1990–2011) of −0.6% annually [10]. e continuous decrease of GHG emissions in the FOLU subsector may have been driven primarily by GHG emissions Uncertainty Source of variations df p value Var % p value Var %
Summary
Largely attributed to anthropogenic activities, remains a critical global phenomenon that attracts the attention of policy makers as well as researchers in all dimensions. is challenge has triggered a nexus of problems and constraints that hinge on societal, cultural, gender, and ecological dynamics. It is further predicted that if proper focus is not given to GHG emissions, the current trend is likely to increase even further in the nearby future [13,14,15,16] In this context, Malawi’s past scenarios of GHG emissions were only documented from 1990 to 2011 [10]. E challenging problem arising in this domain is that the trend from 2011 to 2020 is not available in the literature thereby creating a scientific knowledge gap that would have helped in developing GHG emissions’ mitigation It is against this background that this study was conducted to quantify the GHG emissions within the FOLU subsector in Malawi for the period 2011 to 2020. The study was executed to (1) determine the trend of GHG emissions from 2011 to 2020 within the FOLU subsector in Malawi, (2) determine the contribution of GHG emission within the FOLU subsector, and (3) discuss their emission mitigation measures
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