The possible effects of climate change on the advance of the tree line are considered. As temperature, elevated CO₂ and nitrogen deposition co‐vary, it is impossible to disentangle their impacts without performing experiments. However, it does seem very unlikely that photosynthesis per se and, by implication, factors that directly influence photosynthesis, such as elevated CO₂, will be as important as those factors which influence the capacity of the tree to use the products of photosynthesis, such as temperature. Moreover, temperature limits growth more severely than it limits photosynthesis over the temperature range 5–20 °C. If it is assumed that growth and reproduction are controlled by temperature, a rapid advance of the tree line would be predicted. Indeed, some authors have provided photographic evidence and remotely sensed data that suggest this is, in fact, occurring. In regions inhabited by grazing animals, the advance of the tree line will be curtailed, although growth of trees below the tree line will of course increase substantially.

1 Biological carbon sinks develop in mature ecosystems that have high carbon storage when these systems are stimulated to increase productivity, so that carbon gains by photosynthesis run ahead of carbon losses by heterotrophic respiration, and the stocks of carbon therefore increase. This stimulation may occur through elevated CO₂ concentration, nitrogen deposition or by changes in climate. 2 Sinks also occur during the ‘building’ phase of high carbon ecosystems, for example following establishment of forests by planting. 3 New methods have been developed to identify biological carbon sinks: ground based measurements using eddy covariance coupled with inventory methods, atmospheric methods which rely on repeated measurement of carbon dioxide concentrations in a global network, and mathematical models which simulate the processes of production, storage and decomposition of organic matter. There is broad agreement among the results from these methods: carbon sinks are currently found in tropical, temperate and boreal forests as well as the ocean. 4 However, on a global scale the effect of the terrestrial sinks (absorbing 2–3 billion tonnes of carbon per year) is largely offset by deforestation in the tropics (losing 1–2 billion tonnes of carbon per year). 5 The Kyoto Protocol provides incentives for the establishment of sinks. Unfortunately, it does not provide an incentive to protect existing mature ecosystems which constitute both stocks of carbon and (currently) carbon sinks. 6 Incentives would be enhanced, if protection and nature conservation were to be part of any international agreement relating to carbon sinks.

The carbon budget of the tropics has been perturbed as a result of human influences. Here, we attempt to construct a ‘bottom‐up’ analysis of the biological components of the budget as they are affected by human activities. There are major uncertainties in the extent and carbon content of different vegetation types, the rates of land‐use change and forest degradation, but recent developments in satellite remote sensing have gone far towards reducing these uncertainties. Stocks of carbon as biomass in tropical forests and woodlands add up to 271 ± 16 Pg with an even greater quantity of carbon as soil organic matter. Carbon loss from deforestation, degradation, harvesting and peat fires is estimated as 2.01 ± 1.1 Pg annum⁻¹; while carbon gain from forest and woodland growth is 1.85 ± 0.09 Pg annum⁻¹. We conclude that tropical lands are on average a small carbon source to the atmosphere, a result that is consistent with the ‘top‐down’ result from measurements in the atmosphere. If they were to be conserved, they would be a substantial carbon sink. Release of carbon as carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning in the tropics is 0.74 Pg annum⁻¹ or 0.57 MgC person⁻¹ annum⁻¹, much lower than the corresponding figures from developed regions of the world.