Fig. 1

Global net CO₂ flux due to LULUCF calculated by different datasets. Positive numbers represent a net source (emissions), negative numbers represent a net sink (removals). Light blue line: the average annual value of three bookkeeping models [3,4,5] as presented in [2].Yellow line: FAOSTAT includes (i) forest land converted to other land, (ii) net emissions from forest land remaining forest land, (iii) net flux from organic soils in croplands and grasslands, and from biomass burning [8, 9]. Black line: National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGHGI) include land-use change, and flux in managed lands [10]. Orange line: forest-only related fluxes from a Global Earth Observation (EO) dataset [17], is the sum of the gross emissions and gross removals in non-intact forests (mask: [45] (tropics); [23] (extra-tropics). Data from the Global EO were not available annually and represents the 2001 to 2019 average. The dotted lines represent the linear regression from 2000 to 2020. All trends are statistically significant (P < 0.05)