High economic costs of reduced carbon sinks and declining biome stability in Central American forests

Abstract

Tropical forests represent important supporting pillars for society, supplying global ecosystem services (ES), e.g., as carbon sinks for climate regulation and as crucial habitats for unique biodiversity. However, climate change impacts including implications for the economic value of these services have been rarely explored before. Here, we derive monetary estimates for the effect of climate change on climate regulation and habitat services for the forests of Central America. Our results projected ES declines in 24–62% of the study region with associated economic costs of $51–314 billion/year until 2100. These declines particularly affected montane and dry forests and had strong economic implications for Central America’s lower-middle income countries (losses of up to 335% gross domestic product). In addition, economic losses were mostly higher for habitat services than for climate regulation. This highlights the need to expand the focus from mere maximization of CO2 sequestration and avoid false incentives from carbon markets.

Sharp decline in future productivity of tropical reforestation above 29°C mean annual temperature

“…In addition, the use of a species-specific, process-based forest growth model, such as 3-PGmix, requires the model to be calibrated for each of the species individually, which is very data intensive. Yet, compared to modeling plant functional types ( 75 ), species-specific simulations avoid losing information by grouping species together. Species-specific forest growth data of Neotropical native species are hard to find and, in that sense, our database and species coverage is a valuable basis for such an analysis.…”