In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release more CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the cheapest and fastest to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?
By Daniel Howden
The accelerated destruction of tropical forests that form a precious cooling band around the equator of the Earth, is now being recognized as a major cause of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories.
The burning and destruction of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouse gases according to report published today by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of specialists in tropical forests.
BPC data, summarizing the latest findings of the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases, while transport and industry account for 14 percent each of aviation, and represents only 3 percent of the total.
"Tropical forests are the elephant in the room of climate change," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the GCP.
Scientists say deforestation a day is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York. Reducing these emissions can be achieved faster and cheaper to stop the destruction of Brazil, Indonesia, Congo and other countries.
No new technology is needed, says the GCP, just the political will and a system of enforcement and incentives that makes the trees worth more to governments and individuals standing than felled. "The focus on technological solutions to the emissions of rich countries giving no incentive to poorer nations to stop burning the standing forest means we are putting the cart before the horse," said Mitchell.
Most people think of forests in terms of CO2 they absorb. The rainforests of the Amazon, the Congo basin and Indonesia are considered the lungs of the planet. But the destruction of forests over the next four years, in the words of Sir Nicholas Stern, pump more CO2 into the atmosphere than every flight in aviation history at least 2025.
Indonesia became the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world last week. Following close behind is Brazil. Neither nation has heavy industry on a scale comparable with the EU, India or Russia and yet they comfortably outstrip all other countries except the United States and China.
What both countries have in common is tropical forest that is being cut and burned with staggering swiftness. chimneys visible from space climb into the sky above both countries, while satellite images capture similar destruction from the Congo basin, across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic Bank and Republic of Congo.
According to the latest audited figures from 2003, two billion tons of CO2 enters the atmosphere every year from deforestation. That destruction amounts to 50 million acres - or an area the size of England, Wales and Scotland felled annually.
The remaining standing forest is calculated to contain 1.000 billion tons of carbon, or double what is already in the atmosphere.
As the GCP's report concludes: "If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change."
standing forest was not included in the Kyoto Protocol and is outside the carbon markets that the report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pointed out this month as the best hope for halting catastrophic warming.
The landmark Stern Report last year, and McKinsey Report in January agreed that forests offer the "single largest opportunity for cost reductions, effective and immediate carbon emissions."
International demand has driven intensive agriculture, logging and ranching that has proved an inexorable force for deforestation and conservation was no match for commerce. Experts in tropical forests are now asking for the immediate inclusion of standing forests in internationally regulated carbon markets that could provide cash incentives to halt this disastrous process.
Forestry experts and policy makers met in Bonn, Germany this week to try to put deforestation on the agenda for the UN climate summit in Bali, Indonesia this year. Papua New Guinea, among the poorest nations in the world last year, said he would have no choice but to continue deforestation unless it was given financial incentives to do otherwise.
richest nations already recognize the value of uncultivated land. The EU offers € 200 (£ 135) per hectare subsidies for "environmental services" to its farmers to leave their unproductive land.
And there is still no agreement on placing a value on the land much more valuable in developing countries. More than 50 percent of life on Earth is in tropical forests, which cover less than 7 percent of the planet's surface.
They produce the most rain around the world and act as a thermostat for the Earth. Forests are also home to 1.6 billion poor people worldwide who depend on them for subsistence. However, experts say governments continue to pursue science fiction solutions to the climate catastrophe, preferring bio-fuel subsidies, the systems of power plants and carbon capture of the art.
Putting a price on the carbon these vital forests contain is the only way to slow their destruction. Hylton Philipson, a trustee of concern Mata, explained: "In a world where we are witnessing a mounting clash between food security, energy security and environmental security - while there is money to be made from food and energy and no income to be derived from the standing forest, it is obvious that the forest will take the hit. "
