Forests are not the only habitat whose conservation matters to the climate
RUSSIA does not normally spring to mind as being in the forefront of the fight against climate change. The citizens of Moscow, however, need no explanation of one aspect of the problem—the importance of wetlands. Earlier this year they had an abrupt and lethal lesson on the dangers of peat-bog fires. An unusually hot summer set such fires across the country and the peatlands around Moscow generated a smog that blanketed the city with carbon monoxide and soot. By August 9th the daily death rate had climbed to 700, twice the normal level for that time of the year.
Whether peat-bog fires are being encouraged by climate change is debatable. But it is clear that they release prodigious quantities of climate-changing carbon dioxide when they happen. And even in the absence of fire, draining peatlands—for example, for agriculture—liberates a lot of carbon dioxide. In Russia such drainage is reckoned to free 160m tonnes of the gas every year. In Indonesia the figure is 508m tonnes. All told, the global total is about 1.3 billion tonnes—6% of man-made carbon-dioxide emissions even without the effect of fire. That is far more than the contribution made by aviation, for example. …
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