International Forest Carbon and the Climate Change Challenge: Issues and Options

A multi-author collaborative report highlighting the most promising opportunities and pressing challenges associated with the effort to bring deforestation and forest degradation into climate policy.

Author(s): Lydia Olander, William Boyd, Kathleen Lawlor, Erin Myers Madeira and John Niles

Published: June 2009

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Using carbon finance to conserve and restore tropical forests has emerged as one of the most important topics in global environmental policy. As the international community and the United States embark on efforts to develop new climate policy frameworks, there is a growing recognition that solving the conservation challenge of tropical deforestation can also help solve the problem of climate mitigation. This report highlights the most promising opportunities and the most pressing challenges associated with the effort to bring deforestation into climate policy.

From a scientific perspective, forests must be part of any effective effort to address global climate change. Stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at a “reasonable” level is simply not possible without a concerted effort to control tropical deforestation and encourage sustainable land-use practices. Forests provide numerous environmental and social co-benefits as well as natural insurance against climate change and other environmental challenges. Incorporating tropical forests into climate change policies is increasingly "doable" from a scientific and technical standpoint. Existing scientific tools and methodologies can measure, monitor, and verify changes in rates of deforestation and carbon emissions. Integrating tropical forests into climate change policy provides the most meaningful path for many developing countries to engage in global greenhouse gas mitigation efforts. And for developed countries, forests can provide an additional mitigation option, reducing overall costs of achieving reduction targets and ultimately of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations.