Covering just 3.8% of the planet’s land, peatlands – also known as mires, bogs, fens, and swamp forests – are global hotspots for carbon sequestration and long-term storage. They also hold large stores of organic nitrogen, as their water-logged soils slow decomposition and allow carbon – and nitrogen-rich peat to accumulate over millennia. But when these ecosystems’ water tables fall, oxygen enters the upper layers of peat, spurring decomposition and subsequent losses of stored carbon and nitrogen. These degraded peatlands can emit carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide for decades to centuries until all peat is fully lost or their soils are rewetted.  
An estimated 57 million hectares (Mha) –  nearly 12% of the world’s peatlands – are degrading such that they are no longer actively forming peat, and peat accumulated over centuries to millennia is now disappearing. Collectively, these degraded peatlands emit about 1.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) each year—roughly equivalent to Russia’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020. This estimate, however, excludes GHG emissions from peat fires that, while highly variable and difficult to measure, likely occur on an order of magnitude from 0.5 to 1 GtCO2e annually.
Halting peatland degradation by 2030 can help to limit global warming. But despite recent advances in mapping peatlands, significant data gaps such as incomplete coverage, inconsistent quality, and outdated data inhibit efforts to monitor progress. Data estimating the area of organic soils drained for agriculture provide a best available, though still imperfect, proxy, and they indicate that degradation of the world’s peatlands continues. 

Covering just 3.8% of the planet’s land, peatlands – also known as mires, bogs, fens, and swamp forests – are global hotspots for carbon sequestration and long-term storage. They also hold large stores of organic nitrogen, as their water-logged soils slow decomposition and allow carbon – and nitrogen-rich peat to accumulate over millennia. But when these ecosystems’ water tables fall, oxygen enters the upper layers of peat, spurring decomposition and subsequent losses of stored carbon and nitrogen. These degraded peatlands can emit carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide for decades to centuries until all peat is fully lost or their soils are rewetted.  
An estimated 57 million hectares (Mha) –  nearly 12% of the world’s peatlands – are degrading such that they are no longer actively forming peat, and peat accumulated over centuries to millennia is now disappearing. Collectively, these degraded peatlands emit about 1.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) each year—roughly equivalent to Russia’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020. This estimate, however, excludes GHG emissions from peat fires that, while highly variable and difficult to measure, likely occur on an order of magnitude from 0.5 to 1 GtCO2e annually.
Halting peatland degradation by 2030 can help to limit global warming. But despite recent advances in mapping peatlands, significant data gaps such as incomplete coverage, inconsistent quality, and outdated data inhibit efforts to monitor progress. Data estimating the area of organic soils drained for agriculture provide a best available, though still imperfect, proxy, and they indicate that degradation of the world’s peatlands continues.