Abu Dhabi’s green cover, including mangroves, absorbs around six per cent of total carbon dioxide emissions every year, according to the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi’s (EAD) results of its second Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory Project.

 

The forestry and related sectors absorb 5.7 million tonnes of CO2 (carbon dioxide) annually. Of this, the contribution of forest land is 4.1 million tonnes, mangroves 0.9 million tonnes, and palm and other trees 0.7 million tonnes.

 

The inventory has given better quality data and findings on the absorption of emissions such as by mangroves, which is mentioned for the first time locally and federally by using the updated guidelines of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

 

“Abu Dhabi is considered among the first communities that approved the new guidelines of mangroves as emissions sequester. The Abu Dhabi experiment in this field was displayed on the margin of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) held in Paris in 2015,” said Shaikha Ahmad Al Hosani, deputy executive director of Environment Quality at EAD. (GULF NEWS)