As the U.S. Senate prepares to debate its own climate change legislation, a chorus of politicians, businesses, environmentalists, and scientists is uniting to request that U.S. climate policy help tropical nations in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia protect their forests. Known as the Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, the group suggests that U.S. cap-and-trade legislation raise an annual $5 billion and $9 billion in public and private investments, respectively. Without forestry offsets, comparable domestic emissions reductions would cost the U.S. economy an additional $50 billion by 2020, the group estimates.
The state of Acre in western Brazil gained notoriety in 1988 when cattle ranchers murdered Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper who campaigned against the destruction of the Amazon forest.
Twenty years later, roughly half the state is marked as a protected area. The government continues to integrate conservation efforts into development plans, but total deforestation rates have still risen in recent years. To avoid further forest loss, the state is looking to assistance from outside funders.
Forest loss contributes nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet European cap-and-trade agreements and the Kyoto Protocol have largely refrained from including the forestry sector in market-based emissions offset programs.
The United States, which is looking for affordable strategies to reduce emissions, may be more willing. Governors of three U.S. states have signed cooperation agreements with eight regional leaders in Brazil and Indonesia to protect forests as part of their climate mitigation efforts. A cap-and-trade bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May relied heavily on forestry offsets to reduce emissions 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
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As the U.S. Senate prepares to debate its own climate change legislation, a chorus of politicians, businesses, environmentalists, and scientists is uniting to request that U.S. climate policy help tropical nations in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia protect their forests. Known as the Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, the group suggests that U.S. cap-and-trade legislation raise an annual $5 billion and $9 billion in public and private investments, respectively. Without forestry offsets, comparable domestic emissions reductions would cost the U.S. economy an additional $50 billion by 2020, the group estimates.
Carbon offsets are risky, however. The projects would provide funding in regions with poor environmental controls and high development pressures. Forests in particular are controversial. A fire or weather event could eliminate an offset project's stored carbon, and it is nearly impossible to verify that the amount of carbon stored in a forest is identical to the carbon emitted by an industrial polluter.
Article continues: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6289
