April 7th, 2016
Lately it is common to hear concepts such as sinks for carbon, CDM projects, Kyoto Protocol, biomass and Gases greenhouse (GHG), among others. Even though we know that these topics have to do with the so-called climate change and which are important for the protection of the planet, yet they are concepts that seem rather esoteric, mysterious, which exceed our understanding and therefore we prefer not to go beyond what we hear in the news. Although this topic has a certain complexity degree, it is necessary to know to understand and analyze it from a critical perspective. For this reason, this article seeks to give a little depth to the subject in a simple way, trying to clarify concepts. Carbon sinks according to the UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on climate change (UNFCC for its acronym in English) is defined as carbon sink any process, activity or mechanism that absorbs or removes a Gas of effect greenhouse (GHG), an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. One of the main carbon sinks are forests.This means that if there is a carbon sink is emitted GHGS, part of it is fixed or is bioaccumulates in a forest and its concentration in the atmosphere decreases see explanatory image directly on the blog greenhouse greenhouse greenhouse gases the main gases involved within the term GHG are: steam (H2O) dioxide of carbon (CO2) methane (CH4) nitrogen oxides (NOx) ozone (O3) chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to learn more about the greenhouse effect, please click Here biomass and phytomass specifically CO2 is absorbed by plants and other photosynthetic organisms like algae. This CO2 is fixed or is converted into biomass through the fotosisntesis. Taking into account that biomass is any organic matter of animal or vegetable origin that there is on the planet (including you and me), call from biomass of photosynthetic processes as phytomass.