Preserve the tropical forests
Over two million square kilometres of the world’s tropical forests have been lost since 1990, as much as half the land area of the EU. This forest probably stored 20 billion tonnes of carbon which is 12 times as much as the US’s annual CO2 emissions. For the world, the rainforest is not only an important regulator of weather and precipitation, but also a treasure chest of biodiversity.
Felling and burning of forests accounts for nearly a fifth of annual global emissions of greenhouse gases. In short, when trees are chopped down and burned, carbonates that were bound up in the tree are released as CO2. In addition, the former rainforest floor gives off large amounts of CO2 and methane. The loss of tropical forests therefore represents a double blow for the climate: large amounts of CO2 are released and at the same time we lose one of the most important reservoirs of CO2.
Both Norway and the EU have set a goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius in order to avoid the most dangerous and dramatic consequences of climate change. To achieve this goal, global emissions must be reduced substantially and quickly. One measure that can be carried out relatively inexpensively in the short term is to ensure that the tropical forests remain intact and continue to bind the carbonate rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.
Dense, virgin rainforest stores more carbon than other types of forest. The most important rainforest countries – Brazil, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ghana, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Malaysia – are responsible for as much as 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation. It is therefore possible to concentrate efforts and achieve large reductions in emissions. Brazil has more rainforest than any other country in the world. Since its peak deforestation in 2005 the country has more than halved its deforestation of rainforest – and stopped over a billion tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere, according to the Rainforest Foundation Norway. In 2008, Brazil set a target of reducing deforestation by 80 percent by 2020. The country has established a dedicated fund to finance the control of deforestation and to promote the maintenance and sustainable use of the forest.
According to the well-known British economist Nicholas Stern, reduction in deforestation is the most cost-effective method of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. He estimates that it will cost five billion US dollars a year to halve deforestation and thus reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by about ten percent. Even though many believe that these estimates are too low, there is broad agreement that reducing emissions from deforestation is a relatively inexpensive method of cutting greenhouse gas emissions that will yield great rewards in other environmental respects as well.
Sources:
http://www.regnskog.no/Om+Regnskogfondet/Publikasjoner/Regnskogens+tilstand
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090819/full/460936a.html
http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern.htm
