Peatlands hold approximately 30% of the carbon in our ecosystem. When they are drained for agricultural land and urbanization, because peatlands are so vast, large quantities of carbon decompose and emit  into the atmosphere. The loss of one peatland could potentially produce more carbon than 175–500 years of methane emissions.
Peat bogs act as a sink for carbon because they accumulate partially decayed biomass that would otherwise continue to decay completely. There is a variance on how much the peatlands act as a carbon sink or carbon source that can be linked to varying climates in different areas of the world and different times of the year.  By creating new bogs, or enhancing existing ones, the amount of carbon that is sequestered by bogs would increase.