The Munții Făgăraș range in the southern Carpathian Mountains, Romania, harbors expanses of primary forest and high biodiversity, for which the European Union designated the area as a Natura 2000 site. Local initiatives seek to conserve Făgăraș ecosystems and services through its protection as the proposed Parcul Național Făgăraș, which would be one of the most extensive national parks in continental Europe. Uncontrolled logging poses an immediate threat. At the same time, climate change, caused by carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, motor vehicles, deforestation, and other human sources, threatens ecosystem integrity. Făgăraș forests naturally help prevent climate change by storing carbon. To assist long-term conservation of Făgăraș ecosystems, this climate change assessment presents locally specific scientific information on climate change, ecological impacts, risks, and the magnitude of forest carbon and its ecosystem service. Climate change increased annual average temperature of the proposed national park 1.5 ± 0.2ºC from 1901 to 2022, an increase that was statistically significant and higher than the global average. Precipitation showed no statistically significant long-term trend. Observed ecological changes detected in Europe and attributed by published scientific research to anthropogenic climate change include extirpations (local disappearances) of plant and animal species, upslope biome shifts, loss of bumble bee species, and warming of lake waters. Continued climate change under the highest greenhouse gas emissions scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could increase annual average temperature of the proposed park area up to 6.4 ± 2.0ºC above the 1901-1910 average by 2100. Cutting emissions to meet the Paris Agreement goal globally could limit that projected local heating more than half. Under the highest emissions scenario, climate change could reduce total annual precipitation of the proposed park area 8 ± 4% below the 1901-1910 average by 2100. Meeting the Paris Agreement goal could result in precipitation at or slightly above the 1901-1910 average. Published research indicates that continued climate change could increase numerous risks to Făgăraș ecosystems, including biome shifts, tree mortality of European beech (Fagus sylvatica), silver fir (Abies alba), and Norway spruce (Picea abies), wildfire in an ecosystem where fire is unnatural, and range shifts of mammals. Forests in the proposed national park store 20 ± 9 million tons of carbon in aboveground biomass at densities up to 250 tons per hectare. The proposed Parcul Național Făgăraș could prevent this carbon from contributing to climate change, providing an ecosystem service equivalent to one year of emissions of 20 ± 9 million Romanians, the population of the entire country.
