Land Use and Climate Change Interactions

Abstract

Land use and land-use change can result in the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Climate change also affects the productivity of land, which in turn leads to further land-use change. This paper explores the growing research on both topics. The land-use emission literature has focused on deforestation (harvests) and ignored the fact that harvests have led to a much younger and therefore growing global forest. Taking this into account, mankind’s current and future influence over land use will have a small positive effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although the literature initially focused on climate impacts alone, when adaptation is taken into account we find that climate change is likely to have benign net global impacts on market sectors related to land use. Climate impacts on nonmarket sectors, however, are much more poorly understood or measured. Furthermore, it is not yet clear whether governments will adapt or maladapt to climate change.