CGD Brief June 2017
Five Key Findings from Why Forests? Why Now?
The Science, Economics, and Politics of Tropical
Forests and Climate Change
Frances Seymour and Jonah Busch
Achieving climate stability requires conservation of tropical forests.
n
Protecting tropical forests could lower the overall costs and
n
accelerate the achievement of global climate stability.
Forests generate many non-climate goods and services that are
n
essential to meeting sustainable development goals.
Advances in technology have made stopping forest loss feasible.
n
Rich countries and international organizations should act now to
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scale up REDD+ payment-for-performance agreements.
Key numbers on tropical forests and climate change
24–30 percent The fraction of annual global greenhouse gas emissions
that could be reduced by halting tropical deforestation entirely and letting
damaged tropical forests regrow
28 percent The estimated reduction in the cost of meeting the global
2 degrees C temperature target if tropical forests are included in the world’s
portfolio of mitigation actions alongside actions to reduce fossil fuel use
Frances Seymour
is a distinguished senior
fellow at the World Resources
Institute and a former senior
fellow at the Center for
Global Development
Jonah Busch is a senior
fellow at the Center for
Global Development
10+ The number of Sustainable Development Goals tropical forests
contribute to
30 meters The resolution at which satellites now track deforestation
worldwide
50+ The number of tropical countries that have formally expressed
willingness to reduce emissions in exchange for external performance-based
finance (REDD+)
Five Key Findings from Why Forests? Why Now? The Science, Economics,
and Politics of Tropical Forests and Climate Change
2
By reducing tropical deforestation, a cooler climate can be achieved
more cheaply and quickly
COOLER
CHEAPER
GLOBAL TEMPERATURE INCREASE
FASTER
COST OF ACHIEVING 2 °C
°C
YEAR OF PEAK EMISSIONS
US billion/year
2.5
year
2032
$450
$400
2030
2
$350
2028
$300
1.5
$250
2026
$200
1
2024
$150
$100
0.5
2022
$50
$0
0
Without Forests
With Forests
2020
Without Forests
With Forests
Without Forests
With Forests
Source: Busch, Engelmann, and Lépissier (2016).
“With Forests” refers to emission reductions from gross tropical forest cover loss and peat conversion;
does not include emission reductions from forest degradation or forest regrowth.
1. Achieving climate stability requires
conservation of tropical forests.
At the landmark Paris climate conference in 2015,
countries unanimously pledged to keep global
temperature rise to well below two degrees Celsius. Realistic hopes of achieving such goals will
depend on a dramatic reduction in tropical deforestation. Forest loss is currently a major contributor
to overall global greenhouse gas emissions, and
protecting tropical forests is among the quickest
and most affordable ways to decrease emissions.
Ending tropical deforestation and letting damaged
forests recover could reduce current annual global
greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 24 to
30 percent. Forests are also a safe and natural
carbon capture and storage technology. Halting
tropical deforestation while allowing damaged
forests to recover could secure an amount of carbon equivalent to almost one-third of current annual emissions from all sectors.
2. Protecting tropical forests could lower
the overall costs and accelerate the
achievement of global climate stability.
Early forest-related agreements between industrialized and developing countries have been concluded at a price per ton of avoided emissions
far lower than the costs of alternative options to
reduce emissions. In particular, forests offer a
path to achieving the balance between carbon
emissions and sequestration called for in the Paris
Agreement that is dramatically cheaper than other
carbon capture and storage technologies.
CGD Brief June 2017
Tropical forests’ goods and services
contribute to development
FORESTS
INCOME
timber
clean drinking water
non-timber products
clean air
tourism
medicine
HEALTH
wild foods, bush meat
mosquito control
fire control
freshwater and coastal fish
local temperatures
forage and fodder
recreation
erosion control
FOOD
irrigation
landslide prevention
rainfall patterns
flood control
SAFETY
pollination
carbon storage
less dam siltation
ENERGY
tsunami wave attenuation
DEVELOPMENT
GOODS & SERVICES
fuelwood and charcoal
GLOBAL
PUBLIC
GOODS
biodiversity
GOODS & SERVICES
3. Forests generate many non-climate
goods and services that are essential
to meeting sustainable development
goals.
On average, rural communities in and around
forests derive more than one-fifth of household
income from gathering wild forest products such
as fuelwood, food, and medicinal plants. Forested
watersheds constitute a green infrastructure that
supplies the water for irrigating agricultural crops,
generating hydroelectric power, and providing
clean drinking water and sanitation. Intact forest
vegetation increases resilience to the impacts of
extreme weather events, including those exacerbated by climate change, such as landslides on
steep slopes and storm waves that batter coastlines. Forests thus contribute to health and safety
as well as to food and energy security.
4. Advances in technology have made
stopping forest loss feasible.
The last decade has witnessed a revolution in technology to monitor changes in forest cover. Rapid
advances in remote-sensing technology and computing power and new norms of transparency
have changed everything. It is now possible not
only to assess global changes in tree cover annually at a resolution of 30 meters, but also to detect
deforestation events (such as clearing and fires)
with sufficient frequency to enable response in a
matter of days.
3
Frances Seymour
is a distinguished senior
fellow at the World Resources
Institute and a former senior
fellow at the Center for
Global Development
5. Rich countries and
international organizations
should act now to scale
up REDD+ payment-forperformance agreements.
Jonah Busch is a senior
Rich countries and international organizations should aggressively develop new
sources of forest finance outside of development assistance budgets and institutions. To do this, they should:
fellow at the Center for
Global Development
n
n
n
Allow international forest offsets
in current and future compliance
markets
Pursue using their creditworthiness to
attract private sector finance to forest
protection
Within existing flows of climate finance, dedicate a larger share to
forests, and allocate more of that
share to results-based finance
More than 50 countries have initiated REDD+ programs, but only a few
have access to performance-based finance with international funding
COUNTRIES THAT HAVE
INITIATED REDD+ PROGRAMS
COUNTRIES WITH PERFORMANCE-BASED
FINANCE AGREEMENTS SIGNED
GUYANA (2009)
COLOMBIA (2015)
ECUADOR (2014)
PERU (2014)
LIBERIA (2014)
BRAZIL (2008)
INDONESIA (2010)
“Countries that have initiated REDD+ programs with international funding” refers to countries that have signed a Preparation Grant with the
World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, have active, closed or pipeline national programs with the UN-REDD Program, and/or participate
in the Forest Investment Program, but did not yet have a payment-for-performance agreement in place as of December 2015. “Countries with
performance-based finance” refers to countries that had a payment-for-performance agreement in place as of December 2015.
Sources: Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (2016); Forest Investment Program (2016); United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degration (2016).
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