Land Use and Climate Change Adaptation (Research Paper Sample)

Land Use and Climate Change Adaptation
Executive Summary
This policy brief explores how land-use policies can be improved to contribute to the fight against climate change. Currently, governments are using various policies to address the challenges of climate change. For example, carbon tax laws were introduced to levy charges on businesses based on the amount of carbon they emit in a year. In contrast, governments have also promoted the use of clean energy solutions by enacting specific environmental laws to promote sustainability. However, while these approaches are essential in minimizing carbon emissions, policy makers believe that planting trees to promote forest carbon is much more effective than the latter strategies. This policy brief discusses a set of policy options by identifying their benefits and drawbacks, and finalizes by offering a recommendation for the most appropriate strategy to be adopted in mitigating climate change.
Introduction
Unfitting land use and deforestation are some of the leading human activities attributed to the increasing greenhouse gas emissions resulting in the greenhouse effect. Climate change has been a significant concept in the modern world, especially at time where increased industrialization and carbon emissions continue to exacerbate global warming (Law et al., 2018). Land use changes have increasingly contributed to climate change in several ways. For instance, fires in woodlands, prairies, shrublands, and agricultural lands impact climate change by transferring carbon from the land to the air in the form of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. However, climate change has adversely affected land use through land degradation. As such, it also shapes how policy makers and governments around the world formulate and enact various laws on land use. With climate change predictions shaping decisions on land use, the world needs suitable and effective policies to address the problem before it proliferates (Law et al., 2018). Despite the enforcement of carbon taxes and clean energy requirements being the antidote for addressing climate, the challenge of incorporating them makes planting policies such as the Trillion Tree Imitative at a superior position in mitigating the problems.