Climate deals should reward wider forest management

http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/climate-deals-should-reward-wider-f...

Our forests and our agriculture will save us.

Excerpt:

South Asian countries must be rewarded for afforestation, reforestation and carbon stock growth, say N. H. Ravindranath and Shamama Afreen.

In December 2007, at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Bali, Indonesia, governments from developed and developing countries alike adopted a 'roadmap' for stepping up efforts to combat climate change.

The roadmap included,among other measures,a commitment to establish policy approaches and incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). These are due to be agreed at the UNFCCC climate negotiations in Copenhagen later this year.

Strategies for REDD have been much debated and some developing countries clearly stand to benefit from the proposals. But others, particularly those with low forest cover and low deforestation rates, have little to gain unless negotiators also consider the role of conservation and sustainable forest management.

REDD winners

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the forestry sector contributes about 17 per cent of global greenhouse emissions, making it the second largest source next to energy supply. Estimates put emissions from deforestation in the 1990s at 5.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Deforestation is certainly the largest source of emissions for many developing countries. Research estimates that 12.9 million hectares of tropical forest were lost each year from 2000–2005, mainly through conversion to agricultural land, but also due to expanding settlements and infrastructure.

Brazil, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia occupied the top five positions from 1990–2005, annually deforesting anything from nearly half a million hectares in Zambia to nearly three million hectares in Brazil. And unless action is taken, deforestation is likely to remain high in the tropics over the coming years and decades.

So reducing tropical deforestation is seen as a high-priority way of mitigating potential climate change. And in its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC concluded that it would not cost much to do.

The UNFCCC's vision for REDD is to give developing countries financial incentives to reduce national deforestation rates and associated carbon emissions below a baseline (based either on a historical reference case or future projection). By doing so, REDD should contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation.