Nature-based or natural climate solutions implement factors such as lowered GHG emissions and any additional carbon reductions and their relationships with the natural ecosystem (Qin et al., 2021). This mostly includes landmasses such as forests, agriculture, grasslands, wetlands, and even some ocean-based environments. It is a management and mitigation solution that aims to redirect GHG emissions through Natural Climate Pathways in order to cap current emissions or even begin to observe a reduction. However, the solution also poses difficulties in selecting which landmasses would be appropriate for these pathways. Factors such as wildlife, water availability, competing with the use of already purchased land, and other economic costs may stump the flow such pathways require to be sufficient.
Climate change solutions, like climate change itself, have a noticeable impact on a societal level. The social system and its response to climate change are directly related to the well-being, economic status, and quality of life of the population (Ding et al., 2021). The natural climate pathways are likely to cause socioeconomic alterations in localized, and maybe nationwide, communities. These changes are both industry-driven but in a way that is considerate of the well-being of the local environment and its population. It is a potential for increased employment as well as the reduction of environmental hazards.
Due to the multitude of additional aspects that influence the success of the solution, an experimentation phase is a likely candidate to help with moving the solution forward. The current uncertainty concerning progress towards emission reduction is likely due to a lack of step-by-step blueprints, as many solutions are driven by ambitious goals (Hilden, Jordan, and Huitema, 2017). Short-term experimentation is necessary to offset such solutions in the long term. For this, many factors must be considered. They can include discussion on initial locations for experimentation, the kind of landmass that will be used, the potential pitfalls or improvements of local infrastructure, economy, and other social factors. The scale of the experiments should be noted, and a hypothesis of how such a solution would work on a world scale should be researched.
References
Ding, Y., Li, C., Wang, X., Wang, Y., Wang, S., Chang, Y., Qin, J., Wang, S., Zhao, Q., & Wang, Z. (2021). An overview of climate change impacts on the society in China.Advances in Climate Change Research, 12(2), 210-223. Web.
Hilden, M., Jordan, A., & Huitema, D. (2017). Special issue on experimentation for climate change solutions editorial: The search for climate change and sustainability solutions – The promise and the pitfalls of experimentation.Journal of Cleaner Production, 169, 1-7. Web.
Qin, Z., Deng, X., Griscom, B., Huang, Y., Li, T., Smith, P., Yuan, W., & Zhang, W. (2021). Natural Climate Solutions for China: The Last Mile to Carbon Neutrality.Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, 38(2), 1-7. Web.