Nations of the world could utilize natural solutions to help meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord.

A new international study led by the Nature Conservancy says that replanting forests, protecting peatlands, and better land management could account for as much as 37 percent of carbon reduction by the year 2030.  "Better stewardship of the land could have a bigger role in fighting climate change than previously thought," the international team of scientists said of findings published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Forests from the tropics to Siberia are natural storage for greenhouse gasses, because trees soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they burn or rot.  The study says better management of nature could keep 11.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions out of the atmosphere annually by 2030.  That roughly equal to China's current carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use.

The Paris Climate Accord seeks to limit Global Warming to less than 2 C degrees above pre-industrial levels.  Right now, international pledges to cut emissions are too weak, and the US appears to have pulled out of the agreement thanks to the shortsightedness of the orange clown in the White House.  But letting nature pick up some of the slack through regreening the earth could be cost effective - US$10 to $100 per ton of carbon, according to the study.

"If we are serious about climate change, then we are going to have to get serious about investing in nature," said Mark Tercek, chief executive officer of The Nature Conservancy.