With more than two billion tonnes of CO2, the draining of peatlands is responsible for about 4% of all human-made emissions globally. This is outlined in the Peatland Atlas 2023 – Facts and figures on wet climate guardians, published today by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, the Michael Succow Stiftung (partners in the Greifswald Mire Centre) and BUND (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland/Friends of the Earth Germany), with support of the Global Peatlands Initiative. For the climate crisis and the extinction of species, the ongoing destruction of peatlands acts like an accelerant.
