Peatlands and the Climate: This year’s COP29 must build on COP28

The first Global Stocktake Synthesis Report, published for the  28th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Dubai last year, identified the restoration and protection of natural ecosystems as a critical strategy that can support large-scale CO2 absorption for climate change mitigation. Southeast Asia’s natural peat ecosystems hold great potential to mitigate climate change and help meet Southeast Asian national climate targets.

Peatlands are waterlogged forests and soils where carbon-rich material from aboveground biomass and roots settles underwater, decomposing exceptionally slowly. Acting over millennia, the carbon that accumulates in the soil serves an important “sink” function — defined as anything that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. The United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) Global Peatland Assessment reports that peatlands cover only 3-4 per cent of the planet’s land surface but contain up to one-third (450-650 gigatonnes) of the world’s soil carbon.

Of this, about 6-10 per cent is in Southeast Asia. Scholars have estimated that Indonesia and Malaysia hold 57.4 gigatonnes and 9.1 gigatonnes of peat carbon stocks, respectively. Unfortunately, Southeast Asian peatlands are under threat of deforestation, drainage, and conversion into agriculture and other land uses. These activities accelerate the decomposition process in peatlands, releasing carbon into the atmosphere and reducing their natural carbon absorption and storage capacities.

Reflecting their global importance, peatlands were a mainstream topic at COP28. This differed from previous COP meetings when peatland discussions were mainly confined to specialist communities of practice. 

COP28 hosted several side events focusing on peatlands, highlighting best practices in the field and peatlands’ potential to be a “super Nature-based Solution”. Peatlands were similarly prominent in country pavilions like Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A Virtual Peatland Pavilion, co-developed by the United Kingdom’s International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Peatland Programme and the University of East London, offered a 3D experience for visitors to learn about peatlands and be inspired to action.  

Peatlands also featured in a high-level COP28 Presidency Event, which acknowledged ongoing efforts by the Global Peatland Initiative (GPI). Involving 55 non-governmental stakeholders, the GPI cooperates around peatland protection and conservation in four tropical countries: Indonesia, Peru, the DRC, and the Republic of the Congo. The buy-in of stakeholders, including the indigenous communities that live in and off peatlands and NGOs that play important monitoring and project implementation roles, is critical for restoring and protecting peatlands.

Leading up to COP29, Southeast Asian governments should keep peatlands on their climate agenda by aligning national and global peatland goals while continuing to improve monitoring and enforcement on the ground.

Discussions at COP28 highlighted several interrelated strategies for enabling peatlands to play a more effective role in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts moving forward.

Firstly, countries must recognise the importance of aligning national and global goals. Fewer than 15 per cent of countries with peatlands include peatland targets or actions in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. A notable exception is Indonesia, which includes peatlands in its Enhanced NDC and Long-Term Strategy for Low Carbon and Climate Resilience (LTS-LCCR) 2050. Indonesia has included peatlands as a separate land category and has published detailed operational plans to achieve a net sink in their Forestry and Land Use sector by 2030 through large-scale peatland management.

While peat-related mitigation is less prominent in Malaysia’s current climate plans than Indonesia’s, its Updated NDC does identify peatlands as a priority area for enhancing forestry and biodiversity adaptation by reserving larger buffer areas around peat swamps. Such alignment of national peatland policies with global climate commitments will encourage prominent and transparent reporting of peat emissions in both Malaysia and Indonesia, which holds considerable promise as a model for replication or emulation by other peatland-rich countries.

Secondly, there is an urgent need for higher quality and more transparent peatland emission factor data. An emission factor is a coefficient describing the rate at which a given activity releases greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines include default emissions factors derived by synthesis of published information that countries can use to estimate emissions from peatlands. However, the quality of emission data can be improved by using country-specific emission factors and site-specific emission estimates. Malaysia’s Biennial Update Report 4 (BUR4) promisingly earmarks international funding to review peatland emission factors, including specific emission factors for oil palm plantations in peatlands. Such high-quality data would enable more precise emissions calculations, supporting the accurate tracking of global emission targets. 

Finally, more financing is needed to support peatland restoration and protection. Climate financing is often blended in public-private partnerships such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation+, a voluntary climate change mitigation framework under the UNFCCC where developing countries can receive results-based payments for land-related emission reductions) and the involvement of national peatland areas in generating carbon credits.

Research has shown that peatland carbon mitigation can be relatively cost-effective — below US$100 per tonne CO2 equivalent. However, the lack of robust data, including emission factors, makes it challenging to convince investors that peatland projects are bankable. Verra, a major carbon credit standard-setting organisation, is now developing a specific methodology for tropical peatland conservation and restoration projects. ASEAN’s Investment Framework for Haze-Free Sustainable Land Management also aims to leverage up to US$1.5 billion to scale up peatland carbon financing regionwide.

Azerbaijan, which holds around 3 megatonnes of peat carbon stocks, will host COP29 this November and set the scene for a strong “peatland push”, now a buzzword among peatland scientists. These scientists have recommended updating the 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (Wetlands) to incorporate the latest scientific and policy developments and create a task force to develop a “peatlands target” involving both water and land.

Leading up to COP29, Southeast Asian governments should keep peatlands on their climate agenda by aligning national and global peatland goals while continuing to improve monitoring and enforcement on the ground. At COP29, Southeast Asian countries should work together to unlock finance and other resources for conserving, protecting, and restoring the region’s peatlands.

 This commentary was developed under the Singapore Social Science Research Thematic Grant (SSRTG) on “Climate governance of nature-based Carbon Sinks in Southeast Asia” (MOE2021-SSRTG-021) and Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research Project on “Policy and governance approaches to cooperative mitigation of peatland carbon emissions and transboundary haze in Southeast Asia” (CRRP2022-03MY-Muhamad Varkkey).

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