Global warming: French forests are suffocating

Victims of drought and the proliferation of insect pests, our forests no longer fulfill their role and no longer capture enough CO2. Weakened by the effects of climate change, trees grow more slowly. In the North, the alders of a forest are stunted, they already lack water. “We will end up with increasingly rainy winters and, on the contrary, increasingly dry spring-summers. It is precisely between March and August that the trees need water to grow”analyzes an expert.

Tree mortality on the rise

It is when the forest is young, growing, that it captures carbon. With drought, fires and disease, tree mortality has increased by 54% in a decade. As they decompose, dead trees release CO2. The forest then emits more carbon than it absorbs. Today, three French regions are strongly impacted. Philippe Clais, climatologist and physicist, explains: “In the Hauts-de-France, in the east of France and in Corsica, forests emit CO2.” In ten years, the CO2 storage capacity of our forests has been halved. But solutions exist, in particular that of cutting fewer trees.