Deforestation, Degradation And Climate Change

1 Introduction

1.1 Deforestation, Degradation And Climate Change

t is now widely understood that emissions of Greenhouse Gases GG s that have increased since the mid- th century, are causing significant and harmful changes in the global climate. igher emission levels are inexorably producing increasing drought and aridity, destructive floods and storms and rises in sea levels that will dramatically affect billions of coastal people, the quality of the global environment and the capacity of countries to sustain future economic expansion. The most significant of the GG s is carbon dioxide CO . Since the pre-industrial era, the concentration of this gas in the atmosphere has expanded by , approximately two-thirds of which is the direct consequence of the use of fossil fuels for energy production. While consideration of this source has been the focus of climate change amelioration to date, the Stern Report in estimated that more than was due to deforestation and the degradation of forests – a level higher than the proportion due to the global transport sector. Globally, emissions from land use, land use change and forestry LULUCF are huge. n the past years, it has been estimated that the emissions from LULUCF have reached . Gt Carbon per year. More than of this has been from developing countries, especially those which have large areas of tropical forest such as Brazil, ndonesia , Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Gabon, Costa Rica, Cameroon, Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the PCC Report, forest loss has reached an alarming million hectares per year, while a further . million hectares per year suffer various degrees of degradation. Deforestation and forest degradation are the largest sources of greenhouse gases in the developing countries . While developed countries grapple with the challenge of reducing their high emissions through new technologies and clean development, tropical countries might also contribute substantially to the global challenge by asking whether economic development pathways can be found that are less dependent on the conversion of forests than has been the case through history. Though governments are well aware of the consequences of their shrinking forests on the global climate, the reality of how to change economic development pathways requires the cooperation and positive assistance of all countries. Rising world demand for tropical timber; large numbers of rural poor forced to seek their livelihoods on the forest frontier; agribusiness in search of additional lands for commercial crops or for cattle ranching, all create pressures resulting in tropical deforestation and forest degradation. 1 2 Not only must the drivers of deforestation be removed but new international markets and new protocols are also necessary. As is the case with many other environmental services of forests, such as biodiversity or the regulated production of clean water, the lack of a tangible financial market for the reduction of forest-related emissions of GG gases has meant that tropical countries are not compensated for reducing deforestation and forest degradation. As there are presently no regulated financial markets for valuing and trading the carbon retained in forest ecosystems, conventional forest products or alternative land uses remain potent incentives for deforestation.

1.2 The International REDD Initiative