There is a “mismatch” between the importance of peatlands and their current level of protection, a new study warns.
The paper, published in Conservation Letters, combines maps showing global peatlands, protected areas and human impact in the year 2020, to provide a snapshot of the current level of global peatland protection.
The authors stress that peatlands are crucial carbon stores, holding more carbon than all the world’s forest biomass combined.
However, they find that only 17% of peatlands fall within protected areas – a “substantially lower” proportion than other “high-value ecosystems”, such as mangroves, saltmarshes and tropical forests, they say.
The study finds that 22% of global peatlands are under “high human pressure”, with regions in Europe and the east coast of the US under particular threat.
Furthermore, one-third of the global peatlands in protected areas and Indigenous people’s lands still experience “medium to high human pressure”, the paper finds.
‘Disproportionate’ carbon stores
Despite peatlands’ relatively small footprint – they cover only 3% of the Earth’s land surface – the ecosystems store a “disproportionate amount” of carbon.
Research has shown that there is more carbon contained in peatlands than in all of the world’s forests combined – around 600bn tonnes (GtC).
They also provide myriad other “ecosystem services”, such as regulating air temperatures, storing water and creating habitat for many species.
Peatlands are wetland ecosystems that form slowly over time. When plant matter in one of these habitats dies, the high water content of the soils prevents it from decomposing completely.
As a result, plant matter accumulates, building up as carbon-rich peat over time. Peatlands are found on every inhabited continent, primarily in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere and in the tropics.
The degradation and destruction of peatlands is a significant carbon source, contributing 2-4% of human-driven greenhouse gas emissions each year. Peatlands are often drained or degraded during use for agriculture, and about 16% of peatlands globally have been drained to date. In some places, peat is intentionally removed to be used as fuel or fertile soil.
Prof Chris Evans, a biogeochemist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief:
“Peatland degradation is second only to tropical deforestation as a source of greenhouse gas emissions from land use, yet peatlands are often overlooked in conservation and climate policy.”
At the same time, climate change itself is putting peatlands at risk.
Increased temperatures are causing permafrost thaw, allowing the once-frozen peat to decompose and release CO2 into the atmosphere. Warmer temperatures also increase microbial activity, leading to faster rates of decomposition, while warmer, drier peatlands are more susceptible to fires.
Losing peatlands has “cascading effects on local water supplies, agriculture and fisheries, disproportionately affecting Indigenous and rural communities”, says Dr Michelle Kalamandeen, a geospatial scientist at McMaster University in Ontario, who was not involved in the study.
Protected areas
This study centres on an existing map of global peatland. The map divides the world into grid cells and, using a machine learning model trained on data collected on the ground, estimates the proportion of each cell that contains peatland at least 30cm deep.
The map identifies around 4m square kilometres (km2) of peatland globally. More than 60% of this is “boreal peatland” – found in the high-latitude northern regions, such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavia – and the rest is found in temperature or tropical regions, according to the study.
The authors then cross-reference the map with a database of global protected areas. The database encompasses both “strict” protection areas, such as national parks and nature reserves, as well as less strict land-management regimes where some human activity is permitted.
The database also shows Ramsar sites, a subset of protected areas designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar convention – also known as the “Convention on Wetlands”. (The convention seeks to promote “the wise use of all wetlands” in participating countries and encourage international co-operation with other countries.)
The authors find that only 17% of peatlands are located in protected areas. This is “substantially lower than other high-value ecosystems such as mangroves, 42% of which are within official protected areas globally, saltmarshes (50%) and tropical forests (38%)”, the study says.
Dr Kemen Austin is the director of science at the Wildlife Conservation Society‘s forests and climate change programme, and lead author of the new study. In a press release, she says that the study “reveals that these vital ecosystems don’t have anywhere near the level of protection they need”.
The authors also present case studies of individual countries. For example, they find that nearly 90% of peatland in the Republic of the Congo is protected. However, they warn that “most of this falls within a designated Ramsar site that has not yet been backed-up by strong government commitments”.
The study identifies a large body of literature showing that “Indigenous land rights and community-based management result in positive environmental outcomes, such as reduced deforestation and forest degradation”. The authors analyse data on Indigenous stewardship and find that one-quarter of global peatlands sit on land owned by Indigenous groups.
Human impact
The authors assess human pressures on peatland using the Human Impact Index (HII). This metric quantifies the “cumulative anthropogenic pressures” on a region, using a scale of 0-50 that incorporates factors such as accessibility, land use and population density.
The map below shows human pressure in areas that contain more than 5% peatland by area. Light pink shows “low-pressure” regions, medium pink shows “medium-pressure” regions and dark pink shows “high-pressure” regions.
The top map shows the whole planet, while the three inset maps below highlight chosen case studies in Peru, the Congo Basin and Indonesia.
The authors find that globally, 22% percent of peatlands are under high human pressure, 12% are under medium pressure and 61% are under low pressure. The remaining 5% are in areas without reported HII data.
The authors find that almost half of peatlands in temperate regions are facing high human pressure, adding that Europe and the US east coast are under particular stress. At the other end of the scale, they estimate that human pressure is low in Brazil, the lowlands of Peru, the Republic of the Congo and eastern Indonesia.
The study says that, as expected, human pressure is “somewhat higher” in unprotected peatlands than protected peatlands. However, it adds:
“Nearly one-third of global peatlands, and nearly half of temperate and tropical peatlands in protected areas and Indigenous people’s lands, still experience medium-to-high human pressure.”
The chart below shows the area of peatland in protected and unprotected boreal, temperate and tropical regions that is facing high (black) medium (grey) and low (light grey) human pressure.
Kalamandeen tells Carbon Brief that the study “underscores a fundamental disconnect between conservation priorities and real-world climate needs”.
However, she notes that there are some limitations to the methodology. For example, she tells Carbon Brief that the underlying peatland map “performs well in data-rich regions”, but says that “its accuracy drops where ground-truth data is lacking, notably in Africa, South America and boreal regions”.
Furthermore, the map only recognises peatlands deeper than 30cm, meaning that “shallower, but still ecologically valuable peatlands, are ignored”.
She continues:
“This study is an excellent starting point, but if we are serious about peatland protection, countries need to invest in better mapping and monitoring technologies such as using Earth observations and improving ground surveys to help refine conservation strategies.”
Peatland conservation
The new research “quantifies an issue that was previously known: that peatlands are under-protected when compared to other critical ecosystem types”, Dr Julie Loisel, a palaeoecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, tells Carbon Brief. Loisel, who was not involved in the study, adds:
“In the face of rapid environmental change, ensuring that peatlands can ‘do their job’ of storing CO2 into their soils for the next few thousands of years is very important and any policy or land management effort that is enabling this simple goal should be put forth and prioritised.”
The study notes that several international policy frameworks, such as the global stocktake process under the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, can be applied to further the protection of wetlands.
For example, the authors note that Peru’s nationally determined contribution includes strategies for improving peatland management, such as establishing new conservation areas and recognising Indigenous peoples’ knowledge about peatlands.
However, Peru is one of the few countries with plans for the preservation of peatlands, alongside the UK, according to the study. Austin adds:
“Based on the nationally determined contributions countries have submitted to date, the continued disturbance and damage to global peatlands is getting very little attention as a significant and avoidable source of greenhouse gas emissions.”
In addition to protection of intact peatlands, peatland restoration “will be necessary for managing peat fires and meeting climate targets nationally”, the study says. Restoration typically involves altering the wetland’s water flows to “rewet” drained peat. It can also encompass controls on pollution, protection from burning and grazing and regrowing plants.
But while restoration can slow the release of CO2 and promote some ecosystem services, it is not an adequate substitute for peatland protection. The study notes:
“Notably, once emitted to the atmosphere, the carbon lost from peatlands cannot be restored on timescales that matter for preventing dangerous climate change.”
Promoting Indigenous peoples’ land rights is one way to support the protection of peatlands, Loisel says. She tells Carbon Brief:
“Conservation efforts do not necessarily imply ‘protection from use’, but are rather meant to ensure their ‘proper use’, or ‘sustainable use’. Indigenous community uses of peatlands have been known to be sustainable.”
Kalamandeen tells Carbon Brief that, while legal protections are “crucial”, their impact “depends on enforcement, management capacity and local engagement”. Meanwhile, she says that “Indigenous and community-managed lands, even without formal protection, often demonstrate strong conservation outcomes”.
Dr Adam Todd Hastie is the leader of the carbon and wetlands group at Charles University, and was not involved in the study. He agrees, calling Indigenous stewardship “often the best and most simple solution” to protecting peatlands.
However, he adds that global-north countries “need to be thoughtful in our calls for less economically developed countries to protect their peatlands”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“If we want less economically developed countries to take a different path of protecting their peatlands – and peat carbon – and to forgo short-term economic benefits, such as revenue from plantations or mining, we (especially Europe and North America) must contribute in real terms to developing alternative sustainable solutions, both environmentally and economically.”
The post Just 17% of world’s peatlands are protected, new study warns appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Just 17% of world’s peatlands are protected, new study warns
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 3.1% in the third quarter of 2026, as the Hormuz crisis continued to hit oil demand and coal use also dropped.
This guest post is by:
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air
This was the largest quarterly reduction since the 2022 Covid lockdowns and means that China’s CO2 emissions have now fallen by an estimated 0.5% in the year to date.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that coal use fell by 3% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2026, while oil was down 4%.
The main drivers were a fall in power-sector coal consumption, a continued sharp reduction in transport oil consumption and slowing growth in the coal-to-chemical industry.
The sharp decline in China’s CO2 emissions extends a “flat or falling” trend that began in March 2024 and has now lasted more than two years, as shown in the figure below.
The outlook for China’s CO2 emissions depends on the balance between rising energy demand, clean-energy growth and the government response to a GDP slowdown.
Decline drivers
Key drivers of the fall in CO2 in the third quarter of 2026 included a 3.3% drop in coal-power generation, after demand growth slowed and the amount of “wasted” wind and solar fell.
Power generation from solar, wind and nuclear increased by 110 terawatt hours (TWh) year-on-year, more than twice as much as the growth in total electricity demand. This added clean-power generation equal to Germany’s total power output in the same time period.
The fall in coal-power output and CO2 emissions came despite the fact that China continues to build new coal-power capacity at near-record rates. This means that average running hours for coal plants are falling even faster than total generation, eroding their profits.
Meanwhile, transport oil consumption continued to fall sharply, down 9% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2026. Electric vehicles (EVs) continued to gain market share, hitting a record 67% of passenger car sales and 50% of heavy trucks in September.
The amount of electricity used by EVs grew by 53%, much faster than the number of EVs on the road, showing increased usage of the existing fleet in preference to fuelled vehicles.
Elsewhere, growth in the coal-to-chemical industry continued to slow down in the third quarter of 2026. The sector has been a key source of emissions growth, but high coal prices have weakened profitability and higher output prices hurt downstream demand.
Finally, CO2 emissions from cement and steel production continued to fall in the third quarter, as the contraction in construction volumes accelerated.
Outlook for emissions
Energy consumption growth has been falling after a period of exceptionally high growth during Covid, while clean-power growth has been robust.
This makes it likely that the growth in clean-power generation will exceed total energy demand growth this year, maintaining the structural fall in fossil-fuel use.
Looking ahead, this balance also relies on progress in removing barriers to new solar and wind power being added to the grid, which result in some clean electricity being “wasted”.
The recent slowdown in energy demand growth is partly – but not fully – explained by exceptionally mild weather in the third quarter.
Another key factor is weaker GDP growth. Since reported GDP growth remains within target, however, there is reduced pressure for further stimulus policies.
The focus of the economic stimulus announced to date is “six networks”, which includes the power grid and the transportation network.
These networks are highly relevant for energy and emissions – and they are already covered by policies that emphasise “green” and zero-carbon solutions.
The post Analysis: China’s quarterly CO2 falls 3% in largest drop since Covid appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: China’s quarterly CO2 falls 3% in largest drop since Covid
Climate Change
Coles, Woolworths grilled as beef buyers receive fail grade on new deforestation scorecard
MELBOURNE, Friday 6 November 2026 — As Coles holds its Annual General Meeting today, Greenpeace Australia Pacific has branded the major supermarkets with a fail grade on their commitment to source deforestation-free beef, with an updated scorecard revealing none of the major beef buyers are following through on forest sustainability commitments.
It comes after Woolworths’s AGM last week where the board copped a grilling by environmentalists and shareholders over its failed sustainability commitments. Both Coles and Woolworths committed to eliminating deforestation in their supply chains by the end of 2025, but a year past the deadline, neither company could guarantee that their beef was not sourced from deforested pastures.
From outside the Coles AGM, Adele Chasson, Nature Policy Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“This is a report card Coles and Woolworths should be ashamed to take home. While all major beef buyers had promised to take deforestation off the shelves, none of them followed through. Shareholders and the public demanded answers from Woolworths last week and from Coles today, and we will continue to hold their feet to the fire on their promises.
“Beef is the leading cause of deforestation in Australia, and Coles and Woolworths keep putting off action while koalas continue losing their homes. Aussies must be able to get their groceries without having to worry if their dinner is contributing to the bulldozing of forests or driving extinction of iconic Australian animals.
“Without strong, rapid implementation plans, these companies continue with business as usual, flying in the face of Australia’s deforestation crisis. Big beef buyers like Coles and Woolworths must stop the bulldozers now, make good on their sustainability promises and play their part in stopping Australian forest destruction.”
The scorecard assesses how eight of Australia’s largest beef buyers stack up against a conversion and deforestation-free target. It charts whether the major supermarkets, Aldi, McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Teys, Metcash/IGA and JBS are taking proper action to end Australia’s deforestation crisis. They all failed.
-ENDS-
Media contact: Kimberley Bernard on 0407 581 404 or kbernard@greenpeace.org
Coles, Woolworths grilled as beef buyers receive fail grade on new deforestation scorecard