How Forests Can Limit Climate Change
No commentsA major international conference on forests has demanded their inclusion in any climate change deal that may be reached at the ongoing UN climate talks in Copenhagen.
Key world leaders, including former US President Bill Clinton, the 2009 Nobel laureate in economics, Professor Elinor Ostrom, and Dr Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), all recognized the huge role forests play in solving the climate dilemma.
The world’s forests and forest soils currently store more than one trillion tons of carbon – twice the amount found floating free in the atmosphere – according to studies by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. But the destruction of forests adds almost six billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, approaching 20 per cent of all global emissions.
“It’s now clear that without action on forest-related emissions, the international community has no chance of keeping global warming below the two degree threshold”, said Seymour Francis, Director General of the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) which organized the conference. “Exceeding that threshold [for global average temperature rise above pre-industrial levels] would have catastrophic implications for hundreds of millions of people.”
But while he and others recognized the role of forests in reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, they also acknowledged that the role of indigenous peoples must be respected if policies are to succeed.
Professor Ostrom urged policymakers to ensure their policies were not “top-down”. Rather, she said, they should be “adaptive and include the concerns of indigenous people.”
Ex-President Clinton said: “The global community must give more attention to helping poor communities adapt to climate change already under way. None of this will be easy, or it would have been done before. But it can be done.”
The international community has been considering the inclusion of forests in a future climate change deal in an approach known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). The conference spent much of its time examining REDD, its advantages and potential weaknesses. Forestry experts concluded that REDD cannot be successful without the collaboration of the agriculture, mining and finance sectors.
The Congo Basin forest, the second largest forest reserve in the world after the Amazon, is tipped to play a huge role in storing carbon. Cyriaque Sendashonga who heads CIFOR’s Central African regional office said the Basin has massive potential. But she acknowledged that there is a risk with the use that might be made with any money earned in this way, unless governance and institutional issues are addressed.
