Climate change : financing global forests

This Review aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of international financing to reduce forest loss and its associated impacts on climate change.

It does so with reference to the international debate surrounding the potential for a new global climate change deal in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.Forestry produces around 17 per cent of global emissions, making it the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, exceeding the entire global transport sector.

Current annual emissions from deforestation are comparable to the total annual CO2 emissions of the US or China.This Review focuses particularly on the scale of finance required and on the mechanisms that can, if designed well, lead to effective reductions in forest carbon emissions to help stabilise greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and avoid the worst effects of climate change.

It also examines how mechanisms to address forest loss can contribute to poverty reduction, as well as providing incentives to preserve other ecosystem services such as biodiversity and water services.This Review believes that an ambitious international climate change deal should aim to halve deforestation emissions by 2020 and make the forest sector carbon neutral by 2030, with emissions from forest loss balanced by new forest growth. This will require a step change in the way land is used and commodities produced.The forest sector should be included in global carbon markets: in doing so the costs of reducing global carbon emissions will be reduced substantially, making possible a more ambitious overall emissions target.