SAVE THE WORLD

Land Use and Global Emissions

Save the forest, save the world!

Emission from land use, land use change and forestry contributes up to 18% of the world's emission. This means that forest can become 18% of the problem that lead to climate change but could also potentially serve as solution to keep the climate system integrity.

This dual role of forests — as both a major source of emissions when destroyed and a major sink for carbon when protected — makes them central to any credible strategy for stabilising the global climate. The decisions made about forest management in the coming decades will have consequences that persist for centuries, as the carbon released from destroyed forests accumulates in the atmosphere and drives warming for generations.

Kyoto Protocol and Forestry

Since the climate negotiation begun, the recogniziton of forestry role is already there. It was recognized that afforestation, reforestation, and deforestation is part of the carbon flux process and become part of Kyoto Protocol.

The inclusion of forestry in the Kyoto Protocol accounting framework was a significant step, reflecting the scientific understanding that land use activities are not peripheral to the climate problem but central to it. The creation of the LULUCF category — Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry — established the principle that changes in forest cover and management must be accounted for alongside industrial emissions in national greenhouse gas inventories.

However, the manner in which forestry was treated under Kyoto revealed the limitations of political compromise. The accounting rules for forests were shaped as much by negotiating interests as by science, leading to a framework that in some cases allowed countries with high deforestation rates to avoid accountability while providing only modest incentives for conservation.

Limitations of the Clean Development Mechanism

However, under the Kyoto mechanisms, efforts to halt deforestation were opposed. Under the clean development mechanism (CDM), it is just the afforestation and reforestation (A/R) that's been approved within the forestry sector.

While the A/R provides opportunity but it is not without a problem since definition of forest could also provide incentives to low-biodiversity type of forest. To some this is viewed as perverse incentive as plantation has already profitable without climate incentives and it actually serves smaller advantage to the climate and people.

The exclusion of avoided deforestation from the CDM was one of the most consequential decisions in the history of climate negotiations. It meant that the destruction of ancient tropical forests — releasing carbon accumulated over centuries — generated no financial signal in the carbon market, while the planting of fast-growing monocultures could generate revenue. Critics argued this was precisely backwards from what the climate required.

The Value of Natural Forest

Our focus to natural forest is not only for the value of biodiversity or just for the birds. Natural forest is inherently holds more carbon stock than other type of forest. Thereby the complex system of the forest provides more benefit to the climate. The total economic value of natural forest is astounding.

When all the services that natural forests provide are quantified — carbon storage, water regulation, biodiversity habitat, erosion prevention, climate moderation, provision of food and medicines to local communities — their total economic value vastly exceeds the returns from converting them to agriculture or timber production. The problem is that most of these values are not captured in market prices, making forests appear to have lower economic value than the commodities that replace them.

Ecosystem service valuation methodologies have advanced considerably, providing tools to make the true value of natural forests visible to decision-makers. Incorporating these values into national accounting systems, investment decisions, and cost-benefit analyses is essential for creating the policy conditions in which protecting natural forests becomes the economically rational choice.

REDD and the Path Forward

It is then important to provide sufficient funding to preserve the tropical forest. Reducing emission from deforestation is hoped to be the mechanism to provide sufficient funding to safe the forest. The hard work now is how to make certain that the mechanism is to benefit the people, the biodiversity, and ultimately to safe the climate system.

The design of REDD+ has been shaped by years of negotiation, scientific research, and lessons from pilot projects on the ground. The framework that has emerged is far more sophisticated than the early proposals, incorporating safeguards for communities and biodiversity, phased implementation to allow capacity to be built, and a results-based payment structure that creates accountability for actual deforestation outcomes.

Whether REDD+ ultimately succeeds in saving the world's tropical forests will depend not only on the design of the mechanism but on the political will to provide financing at the required scale, the governance capacity of forest countries to implement it effectively, and the engagement of local communities and indigenous peoples as genuine partners rather than passive recipients. The challenge is formidable, but the alternative — continued deforestation contributing to catastrophic climate change — makes the effort not merely worthwhile but essential.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Kyoto Protocol and how did it treat forests?+

The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 and entering into force in 2005, was the first legally binding international agreement setting specific greenhouse gas reduction targets for developed countries. Under the protocol, industrialised nations committed to reduce their collective emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels during the first commitment period of 2008 to 2012. It established three flexible mechanisms — Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation, and the Clean Development Mechanism — to help countries meet their targets cost-effectively.

The treatment of forests under Kyoto was complex and contested. The protocol recognised that land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) activities were part of the carbon flux that countries needed to account for. Afforestation and reforestation activities were included in the accounting framework, allowing countries to count the carbon absorbed by newly planted trees against their emissions targets.

Crucially, however, the Clean Development Mechanism — the mechanism through which industrialised countries could fund emission reductions in developing countries — was restricted in the forestry sector to afforestation and reforestation only. Activities to prevent deforestation of existing natural forests were not eligible under the CDM. This was a fundamental gap that left the largest source of emissions from the land-use sector — the destruction of standing forests — outside the reach of international carbon finance.

This limitation was recognised relatively early and motivated the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (RED) proposal that Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica brought to the UNFCCC in 2005 at COP11 in Montreal. The subsequent negotiations that would eventually produce the REDD+ framework were a direct response to the Kyoto Protocol's failure to create incentives for developing countries to protect their existing forests.

What is the Clean Development Mechanism and what were its problems for forests?+

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was established under the Kyoto Protocol to allow industrialised countries with emissions reduction targets to fund emission reduction projects in developing countries and count the resulting credits against their own targets. The mechanism was designed to achieve two objectives simultaneously: help developed countries meet their commitments cost-effectively, and assist developing countries in achieving sustainable development.

Under the CDM, only afforestation and reforestation projects in the forestry sector were approved. This meant that a developed country could fund the planting of trees on previously unforested land in a developing country and claim credits for the carbon the new trees absorbed. However, projects that protected existing forests from destruction were not eligible, creating a perverse incentive structure in which new plantations could generate carbon credits while the destruction of ancient primary forests went unrewarded for conservation.

Even within the approved afforestation and reforestation category, forest projects faced additional constraints not imposed on industrial CDM projects. Credits from forestry projects were designated as temporary, meaning they expired after a fixed period and needed to be replaced. This reflected concerns about permanence — the risk that forests could burn, be logged, or die back, releasing the carbon they had absorbed and rendering the credits invalid. These restrictions made forestry CDM credits less attractive to buyers than industrial credits.

The definitional question of what constitutes a forest also created problems. Under the CDM, countries could choose from a range of definitions of forest in terms of minimum canopy cover, height, and area thresholds. Broad definitions allowed monoculture plantations of fast-growing species — often economically marginal and ecologically impoverished — to qualify as forests, potentially directing CDM finance toward low-biodiversity plantations rather than the diverse natural forests that provide the greatest ecological and carbon benefits.

What is REDD+ and how does it differ from the CDM approach to forests?+

REDD+, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries, plus the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks, is the mechanism that was developed to fill the gap left by the CDM. Unlike the CDM, which rewarded the planting of new trees, REDD+ focuses on protecting existing forests and preventing the emissions that would result from their destruction or degradation.

Under REDD+, developing countries that can demonstrate measurable reductions in deforestation or forest degradation against an established reference level are eligible to receive results-based payments. These payments create a financial incentive to keep forests standing by making the economic value of the carbon stored in forests visible and accessible to governments and communities that might otherwise clear the forest for agriculture or logging.

REDD+ also includes important environmental and social safeguards that were absent from the CDM forestry framework. Countries implementing REDD+ are required to respect and protect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, maintain or enhance biodiversity, ensure transparent and participatory governance, and prevent the conversion of natural forests to plantations. These safeguards reflect the lessons learned from CDM experiences and the advocacy of civil society organisations throughout the negotiations.

The financial scale of REDD+ is potentially transformative. Estimates suggest that avoiding deforestation at the scale needed to limit warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees would require tens of billions of dollars annually — far exceeding anything the CDM achieved in the forestry sector. Unlocking this finance requires credible measurement and verification systems, international agreement on accounting rules, and political will from both donor and recipient countries that has been challenging to sustain over time.

Why does the land-use sector represent such a large share of global emissions?+

The land-use sector — encompassing agriculture, forestry, and other land use activities — contributes a very substantial share of global greenhouse gas emissions, estimated at between 10 and 25 percent of total annual emissions depending on the methodology used. This is primarily because forests, soils, and wetlands store enormous quantities of carbon that is released when these ecosystems are disturbed or converted.

Deforestation releases carbon that has been accumulated over decades or centuries in tree biomass and woody debris. Forest soils, particularly the organic-rich soils of old-growth forests, also release carbon when they are disturbed by clearing and tillage. Tropical peatlands are especially important: the organic soils beneath these forests can be tens of metres deep, storing carbon that was fixed from the atmosphere thousands of years ago. Draining and burning peatlands releases this carbon rapidly, generating emissions that can exceed those of burning coal on a per-hectare basis.

Agricultural land use adds further emissions through the decomposition of soil organic matter on cleared land, through the methane emissions of livestock and rice paddies, and through the production and application of nitrogen fertilisers that generate nitrous oxide — a potent greenhouse gas. When the full supply chain of food production is included, agriculture and related land use account for approximately one third of total human-caused emissions.

The corollary is that the land-use sector also has significant potential for carbon sequestration. Protecting existing forests, restoring degraded forests, improving agricultural soil management, and expanding agroforestry systems can all contribute to removing carbon from the atmosphere. Many climate scenarios consistent with the Paris Agreement targets rely on substantial contributions from the land sector to offset residual emissions from other sectors, making land-use policy a central element of any serious climate strategy.

How can tropical forests be saved while supporting development in forested countries?+

Reconciling forest conservation with economic development in tropical countries is one of the central challenges of sustainable development. For many forested developing countries, the timber, agricultural commodities, and mineral resources found in and under forests represent a significant share of national economic output and government revenues. Asking these countries to forgo these revenues for the global climate benefit requires providing alternative sources of income and economic security.

Payment for ecosystem services mechanisms, including REDD+, are designed precisely to address this challenge by making the carbon value of standing forests financially accessible to governments and communities. If the flow of REDD+ finance can be made sufficient, reliable, and equitably distributed, it has the potential to compete with the economic returns from deforestation and make conservation the rational economic choice for forest countries.

Beyond direct carbon payments, there are important opportunities to redirect development finance away from environmentally destructive activities toward low-carbon alternatives. Development banks, including the World Bank and regional multilateral development banks, have significant leverage over the types of development they support through their lending and technical assistance. Applying environmental and social standards to all public finance, and mobilising private finance for sustainable land-use practices, can shift the overall direction of development in forest countries.

Consumer country governments and corporations also have an important role to play by ensuring that their import and procurement practices do not drive deforestation. Trade policies that require imported commodities to meet deforestation-free standards, combined with supply chain transparency requirements for companies, can reduce demand for forest-risk commodities and create market incentives for sustainable production. Ultimately, saving the world's tropical forests requires a global effort that distributes the costs fairly and provides genuine development opportunities for the people and countries whose forests the world depends on.