Climate mitigation potential of natural climate solutions and clean energy on The Nature Conservancy properties in California, USA

Garcia River Forest conservation easement from changes to forest management (147,749 MTCO2e year –1) alone. Implementing all potential NCS and clean energy solutions on fee properties would not reach the organization’s 2030 goal and represents 3% of the state’s CO2e reduction goal. Whereas reduction from the Garcia River Forest represents 7% of the state’s CO2e reduction goal. The activity with the greatest climate mitigation potential was the same for fee-owned prop- erties and conservation easements (Fig 4). On all fee properties together, cultivated to managed Fig 2. Potential NCS area for all activities combined on individual conservation easements and fee properties. Ongoing NCS activities are occurring at the Garcia River Forest (largest area), Childs Meadow, and Staten Island. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311195.g002 Table 3. Utility emission reduction potential. The greatest potential CO2e reduction from switching to clean energy is at the Staten Island property where water pumps are run to keep the island from going underwater due to a long his- tory of land subsidence from farming the Delta. TNC Property Type 2021 Total CO2e (MTCO2e year-1) Staten Island Fee 437.1 Cosumnes River Preserve Lease 18.12 Santa Cruz Island Preserve Fee 17.53 Dangermond Preserve Fee 14.78 Sacramento Office Fee 7.24 Dye Creek Preserve Management Agreement 5.96 Randall Tehachapi Preserve Fee 5.25 Llano Seco Rancho Easement 3.09 Sacramento River Fee 1.80 Big Bear Fee 1.70 Santa Clara River Fee 1.00 Landreth Preserve Fee 0.87 Spindrift Point Fee 0.62

Sacramento River Management Agreement 0.45 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311195.t003 PLOS ONE Climate mitigation potential of natural climate solutions and clean energy: The nature conservancy, California PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311195 October 21, 2024 7 / 14