Peatlands are a type of wetland where dead plant material doesn't fully decompose because it's too soggy.
In these ecosystems, peat builds up as spongy dark soil that's sometimes referred to as sod or turf. Over thousands of years, yards-thick layers of peat accumulate and trap huge amounts of carbon, helping to cool the climate on a global scale.
But that might not be true for much longer. Warming temperatures and human actions, such as draining bogs and converting them for agriculture, threaten to turn the world's peatlands from carbon reservoirs to carbon sources.
In a newly published study, our multidisciplinary team of 70 scientists from around the world analyzed existing research and surveyed 44 leading experts to identify factors that could change peatlands' carbon balance now and in the future. We found that permafrost degradation, warming temperatures, rising sea levels and drought are causing many peatlands around the world to lose some of their stored carbon. This is in addition to rapid degradation caused by human activity.
And unless steps are taken to protect peatlands, carbon loss could accelerate.
Peatlands are found in an estimated 180 countries. Many of them have not been recognized and are not yet properly mapped. (Credit: Levi Westerveld/GRID-Arendal)
From carbon sink to carbon source
Although they only occupy 3 percent of the global land area, peatlands contain about 25 percent of global soil carbon — twice as much as the world's forests. Peatlands exist on every continent, even in Antarctica. In the U.S. they are found in many states, including Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin. These ecosystems form where partially decayed organic matter accumulates in cold soil that is nearly always wet, which dramatically slows decomposition.
But now climate change is altering those conditions. For example, in many regions of the Arctic, rapid permafrost thawing promotes microbial activity that releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These microbes feed off carbon-rich peats that were once frozen.
Massive peatland fires also contribute. Recent wildfires like those in Russia are known to release as much carbon in a few months as total human carbon dioxide emissions in an entire year. And these fires are especially tricky to put out. Embers within the dense organic matter can reignite many months or even years later.
Human activities are also increasing greenhouse gas releases from these carbon-rich ecosystems. In the United Kingdom, for example, extracting peat for use in gardening has caused peatlands to emit an estimated 16 million tons of carbon every year—roughly equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from more than 12 million cars.
In Indonesia and Malaysia, as fertile land becomes increasingly scarce, peatlands are being burned, drained, and repurposed. Already, most peatlands in Indonesia have been destroyed in order to build palm oil plantations. The World Resources Institute estimates that in Indonesia and Malaysia, peatland draining results in total annual emissions equal to those of nearly 70 coal plants. These activities also endanger vulnerable animal populations, such as orangutans and various species of freshwater fish. Peatland degradation due to human activity accounts for 5-10 percent of annual carbon dioxide emissions from human activity, despite these zones' tiny geographic footprint.
Quantifying peatland carbon
Predicting how much carbon will be released from peatlands worldwide is hard to do, especially because no models can adequately represent these ecosystems and the many factors that influence their carbon balance.
Peatlands are not included in most earth system models that scientists use to make future climate change projections. There is a long-held view that peatlands are minor players in the global carbon cycle on a year-to-year basis, but our study and many others show that climate change and human intervention are making these ecosystems very dynamic. Our study highlights the need to integrate peatlands into these models; we also hope it can help direct new research.
Even though models are not ready, decisions need to be made now about how to manage peatlands. That's why we surveyed experts as a first step towards predicting the fate of peat carbon worldwide.
Based on their responses, we estimate that 100 billion tons of carbon could be emitted from peatlands by 2100 – am amount equivalent to about 10 years of emissions from all human activities, including burning fossil fuels and clearing forests. The experts we consulted have not reached a consensus, and our estimate is highly uncertain: Net changes in peat carbon over the next 80 years could range from a gain of 103 billion tons to a loss of 360 billion tons.
Not every region will be affected the same way. High-latitude peatlands might see an increase in carbon storage under a warming climate because of increased plant growth and greater peat accumulation. Tropical peats, on the other hand, are more likely to dry out and burn due to warming temperatures and human activity. These factors and human choices about peatland use will affect whether these areas become carbon sources or sinks in the future.
Overall, our results suggest that carbon releases will surpass carbon gains in the coming years, primarily because of human impacts in tropical peatlands. This switch from carbon sink to carbon source will feed a positive feedback loop, with peatlands releasing carbon that makes Earth's climate warmer, which makes peatlands release more carbon, and so on.
Despite the uncertainty in our findings, we believe our results show that peatlands should be included in climate models, and that nations should take steps to preserve them.
Toward sustainable use
A balance must be achieved between wise peatland use and local economic needs. Given how much carbon peatlands hold and how vulnerable they are, many surveyed experts believe people soon will adopt more sustainable practices for managing them. But others are not so optimistic. In regions such as the Amazon and the Congo basins, where large peatland complexes were recently discovered, it is critical to take action to preserve them.
Peatlands should also be considered in integrated assessment models that researchers use to understand climate change impacts and options for mitigating them. Models that project future socioeconomic change and carbon emission pathways could help develop incentives such as peatland carbon pricing and sustainable use practices. This would change the way these ecosystems are valued and managed.
The first step, however, is to raise awareness around the world of this precious natural resource and the consequences of continuing to exploit it.
Julie Loisel is an assistant professor of geography at Texas A&M University.
Leading climate experts predict severe temperature increases this century, significantly exceeding the crucial 1.5C goal, which could lead to devastating global impacts.
A survey involving IPCC scientists forecasts a minimum 2.5C rise in global temperatures, with some expecting up to 3C.
Many researchers express deep concern over inadequate government actions despite clear evidence of impending climate crises.
The scientific community emphasizes continued efforts in the climate battle, highlighting the importance of each fractional degree in reducing future suffering.
Key quote:
"I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years."
— Gretta Pecl, University of Tasmania.
Why this matters:
Warmer global temperatures can lead to more frequent and severe weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires, contributing to property damage, displacement and loss of life. Health risks are also expected to surge with increases in heat-related illnesses, the spread of infectious diseases and challenges to food and water security affecting the most vulnerable populations. The higher end of the temperature spectrum, 3 degrees Celsius, may represent the potential for a tipping point beyond which the environmental consequences could become irreversible and catastrophic.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
Trump promised oil industry leaders substantial regulatory rollbacks in exchange for significant campaign contributions.
This fundraising strategy highlights a direct linkage between financial support and policy promises aimed at benefiting the oil industry.
The former president's agenda starkly contrasts with existing environmental policies, suggesting major policy reversals if re-elected.
Key quote:
"You all are wealthy enough, you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House."
— Donald Trump, former U.S. president
Why this matters:
If he's elected in November, Trump's promises to the oil industry could result in the reversal of key U.S. environmental and health policies enacted during the Biden administration, potentially eroding gains in emissions reductions, clean energy advancements and environmental justice.
Flashback to 2020: Trump's first term resulted in significant environmental rollbacks. Here are a few of them.
The U.S. oil sector is creating executive orders for Donald Trump, focusing on natural gas exports and deregulating drilling, anticipating his possible reelection.
Energy executives express concern over Trump's potential lack of focus on energy policy if reelected, prompting preemptive action.
Plans include reversing Biden's green initiatives and increasing federal lands access for oil drilling.
Industry insiders are crafting detailed drafts to ensure favorable policies are implemented swiftly.
Key quote:
“You’ll see a lot of Biden regulations that have come out in the past six months checked one way or another. It’s going to be like shooting fish in the barrel — there’s just so much to go after.”
— Stephen Brown, director of energy consulting firm RBJ Strategies and a former refining industry lobbyist
Why this matters:
The oil industry's direct involvement in drafting executive orders reveals the sector's anticipation of a political climate more favorable to fossil fuel enterprises, which contrasts starkly with the current regulatory approach that prioritizes environmental safeguards and renewable energy sources.
Chelsea Wood, a parasite ecologist, highlights the often misunderstood benefits of parasites in ecosystems, using their complex interactions to argue their importance.
Wood compares parasite roles to historical predator roles in ecosystems, noting significant parallels in their necessity for environmental balance.
Recent studies by Wood's team show a decline in complex parasites due to climate change, raising concerns about the broader ecological impacts.
Key quote:
“In some populations, 100 percent of them are infected, and 50 percent of their biomass is parasite."
Carlos Moreno advocates for cities where daily necessities are reachable within 15 minutes on foot or by bike, enhancing quality of life and reducing car reliance.
Implementation of this concept in Paris has cut down traffic and pollution substantially, showcasing its effectiveness.
The model faces criticism regarding potential increases in social inequities, underscoring the need for inclusive planning.
Key quote:
"It’s an invitation to reinvent our lifestyles and urban practices to build a better future, where sustainability, equity, and well-being are at the heart of our concerns."
The administration has imposed a variety of regulations, such as a ban on asbestos, stringent auto emissions standards, and the first-ever regulations on "forever" chemicals in drinking water.
Among the key policies are strict limitations on emissions from power plants and vehicles, aiming to drastically reduce greenhouse gases.
New measures also include increased safety requirements for chemical plants and protection for endangered species under federal law.
Why this matters:
The recent actions by the administration to tighten environmental regulations mark a significant shift toward addressing long-standing public health and environmental challenges. While they may present challenges for industries adapting to new standards, the long-term benefits of a cleaner environment and a healthier population are invaluable.
Perhaps most groundbreaking are the first-ever regulations on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, often referred to as "forever" chemicals due to their persistence in the environment and the human body.
U.S. Steel’s proposed sale to Nippon Steel stokes concerns over labor rights and national security, all while the company continues to break clean air laws in Western Pennsylvania.
