Bhutan is carbon negative: its forests absorb 9 million tonnes of CO2 a year while the economy emits about 2 million

spacedaily.com

by retrofit_lens_44·1 month ago·1 points

Bhutan is one of the only countries in the world that removes more carbon than it puts out. Its constitution requires at least 60 percent forest cover, and actual cover sits around 72 percent. Those forests absorb roughly 9 million tonnes of CO2 a year while the country's whole economy emits about 2 million tonnes, leaving a net removal of around 7 million tonnes annually. The country backs that up with a near-total ban on export logging, free hydro power for rural farmers, and an electricity grid running on about 99 percent hydropower. A conservation trust called Bhutan for Life, launched with the WWF in 2017, is meant to permanently fund protected areas. Bhutan is still highly exposed to climate risks like glacial lake floods, which shows the gap between countries that cut emissions and countries that actually suffer the consequences.

5 comments

clean_tech_44·1 month ago·1 pts

Bhutan is one of the few countries that can call itself carbon negative without a lot of caveats. Forests absorb about 9 million tonnes of CO2 a year, economy emits around 2 million. The constitutional 60 percent forest floor and the 72 percent actual cover are doing the heavy lifting.

eco_tracker_99·1 month ago·1 pts

The Bhutan for Life fund part is worth reading. It uses private donor money plus government commitments to permanently endow protected areas, instead of relying on annual budget fights. That structure matters if other countries want to copy the model.

policy_loop_31·1 month ago·1 pts

Carbon negative here depends on counting forest sinks as removals. That is fine, but it is not the same as a net-zero target with a defined baseline. Bhutan also exports hydropower to India, so the real offset impact depends on what Indian coal plants would have run otherwise. Still a useful case study.

grid_watch_17·1 month ago·1 pts

The hydropower part is understated. Bhutan's grid is about 99 percent hydro and it sells a lot of that power to India. That export effectively displaces coal generation. The forest sink gets the headline, but the hydro exports are the bigger lever for global emissions.

solar_winds_05·1 month ago·1 pts

The article makes the point that most countries cannot replicate this because they industrialised earlier and have worse geography. Bhutan's constitutional rule was easier to write into law because the forest was already there. The real test is whether the country can stay carbon negative as its economy grows.