Abstract
Reforestation is the appropriate natural tool to mitigate the climate change. The authors illustrate how to manage cuts and plantations of trees making profit from unused lands, to reach different carbon capture goals. Unused lands, moreover, are frequently in the neighbouring of Municipalities which often are politically responsible of these territories. Their destination as carbon sink inside the implementation of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) is particularly suitable, participating in a synergic way to reduce the CO2 municipal emissions by 55 % in 2030 with respect to the 1990 datum. In the framework of a SECAP, this level is mandatory and participates to the common huge effort to decarbonize energy needs. After having modelled some intrinsic aspects related to the dynamics of the carbon capture due to the growth of trees, the research demonstrated how, with a proper management of cuts and plantations, a new concept of mutualism between city and territory can be designed, recognizing the crucial role of neighbouring unused lands alongside those direct actions usually implemented to reduce the carbon intensity of a city.
Highlights
Urban areas are responsible for almost 80% of total greenhouse gas emission (GHG) [1], so recognising the central role of Municipalities, the importance of the sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs) and subsequent sustainable energy and climate action plans (SECAPs) [2]
To reduce the majority of GHG emissions, interventions should be used in urban context and the most important one appears to be the reforestation [3],[4]
In the first year a reduction of 55% compared with 1990 levels will be obtained, in the second the achievement of zero emissions will be reached
Summary
Urban areas are responsible for almost 80% of total GHG [1], so recognising the central role of Municipalities, the importance of the sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs) and subsequent sustainable energy and climate action plans (SECAPs) [2]. Other side advantages associated with reforestation are related to the more general land management: protection from soil erosion, from landslides, from extreme rainfall, landscape restoration, mitigation of high temperatures, reconstruction of biodiversity which all together affect a more sustainable environment, but the carbon sequestration is only limited in time. It is in the Authors’ opinion that today the unused land management in urban contexts finalized to carbon capture and sequestration has a formidable role to help local politically recognized communities (Municipalities) to participate to the international commitments, giving their contribution exactly following a bottom-up approach
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