Forest can breach the global carbon gap(1)

Reforestation has emerged as an emergency solution to combat global warming. But the issue of financing is complex, especially since there is a lack of consensus on how to value forests and, at an even more basic level, what a forest is.

As global greenhouse gas emissions rise instead of decreasing, forests play an even more crucial role in fighting global warming, since experts believe it will be impossible to prevent a disastrous increase in global temperature without drastically curbing deforestation.

Despite the vital importance of forests, 13 million hectares are destroyed every year, fact that led the United Nations to make forests the focus of this year’s World Environment Day, on Jun. 5.

Global carbon emissions in 2010 were five percent higher than in 2008, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in late May, making the international target of limiting the rise in global temperature to two degrees Celsius increasingly impossible to achieve.

Through photosynthesis, trees capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then store it for as long as they remain alive, a process referred to as carbon “sequestration”.

"We need forests to bridge the carbon gap," said Stewart Maginnis, head of the Forest Conservation Program of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Carbon emission reduction commitments made by countries in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord will not be enough to keep global temperatures near two degrees of additional warming. Scientists believe that an increase of more than two degrees would lead to climate change impacts of disastrous proportions.

Deforestation accounts for roughly 17% of total annual emissions. "There is no 'Plan B'. We desperately need forests and reforestation to sequester carbon," said Maginnis.

Forests were the focus of this year's World Environment Day not only for their role in storing climate-altering carbon, but also because they generate oxygen and supply water to 50% of world's largest cities.

Forests are home to more than half of land-based animals, plants and insects. Moreover, some 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Yet global deforestation continues at an alarming rate: every year, 13 million hectares of forests, an area the size of Nicaragua, are destroyed for wood products and by conversions to cash crops and cattle ranching.

UNEP, IUCN and many other organizations believe the best chance, and maybe the only chance, to change this is through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programs that are a key part of the new green economy.

Countries and industries looking to reduce their emissions of carbon can either reduce their physical carbon emissions or purchase carbon credits to offset those emissions under REDD or REDD+ programs.

REDD+ refers to REDD programs that go beyond maximizing carbon storage to ensuring protection of biodiversity and livelihoods of local people and communities.

"REDD+ strategies of various types are the only way to mobilize enough funds to deal with the drivers of deforestation," said Maginnis.

However, according to Bram Büscher of the International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, REDD and other market-based mechanisms to protect forests simply will not work.

"Making money will always trump the ecological benefits of forests in a capitalistic economic system," Büscher said. "It's simplistic to say everyone wins with REDD. There is nothing win-win under capitalism. It's all about winners and losers," he added.

"Capitalism is inherently unecological. We're trying to rig the system to make it work for the green economy. It's a sham," Büscher maintained.

The United Nations and other institutions are pushing countries to “green their economies” through a shift to renewable energy and by dramatically reducing their resource use, wastes and pollution while meeting the needs of the poorest people.