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Forests
Forests and Climate Change
Drought, Mangrove in parched land, French Guiana.
© WWF-Canon / Roger LeGUEN
Forests have a vital role to play in the fight against climate change, being the largest terrestrial store of carbon and the third largest source of carbon emissions after coal and oil. Deforestation is estimated to be responsible for 18% of current greenhouse gas emissions . In addition, forests have significant economic and ecological value as a provider of ecosystem services, being home to much of the world’s biodiversity and supporting the livelihoods of over 1 billion of the world’s poorest people.
Forests are destroyed or degraded by activities such as logging and conversion of forest to agricultural land. These activities release large quantities of carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere becoming a significant (for some developing countries, a primary) source of GHG emissions and a contributor to climate change.
Deforestation and degradation of our forests continue at an alarming rate. We lose over 32 million acres of tropical forest each year - the equivalent to 36 football fields a minute. The potential for forests to become even greater sources of carbon emissions due to deforestation and degradation is massive.
Aerial view of a logging mill near Apiacás, Mato Grosso state. Juruena National Park, Brazil.
© WWF / Zig KOCH
International Policy
Although their importance in addressing climate change is clear, forests have had a complex history in the international climate negotiations. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls on all nations to protect and enhance the reservoirs of carbon, including forests.
Avoiding catastrophic climate change will depend upon holding the average increase in global temperatures to well below 2°C – a feat that will require the global emissions of greenhouse gases to be reduced by at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Achieving cuts of such magnitude will require steep reductions in all sources of greenhouse gas emissions – including the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. WWF’s Climate Solutions report concluded that the probability of success in limiting global warming to 2°C drops progressively from greater than 90% down to 35% in the absence of effective action to curb REDD emissions.
Kerinci Seblat National Park Stream in the tropical rainforest Sumatra, Indonesia
© WWF-Canon / Mauri RAUTKARI
Reducing emissions from deforestation (REDD)
While reforestation is important and helpful for supporting reduced emissions in many places, stopping deforestation and forest degradations is more urgent from a climate perspective. It takes decades for a sapling to grow and absorb the amount of carbon that is released when a mature tree decays. Reducing deforestation and degradation is a highly cost-effective way of reducing GHG – one that can be done immediately if the drivers of deforestation are addressed strategically. If done right, it can also benefit biodiversity conservation and people.
Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in developing countries is a critical component of the overall greenhouse gas emission reductions required to achieve this climate goal. REDD will require significant preparation and planning to produce measurable, reportable and verifiable reductions. This is best achieved through national-level REDD programs with national-level baselines and monitoring.
These programs should be developed in three rigorous phases:
- Planning (Phase 1)
- Preparing (Phase 2)
- Executing (Phase 3)
Graduation from one phase to the next should be based on clear, internationally approved standards within a UNFCCC-defined framework. The post-2012 treaty will need mechanisms to oversee countries’ passage through these phases at their own pace, and to determine and periodically review national baselines.
The post-2012 climate agreement should ensure sufficient and sustainable incentives for REDD to become an integral component of the global climate solution and the international financial architecture. It is a priority that industrialized countries commit to provide sustainable and binding funding for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries as a fundamental part of the Copenhagen agreement, alongside their own deep domestic reduction targets
WWF has initiated pilot projects in key regions of the world to better understand the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and test methods for managing forests to resist these impacts.
Learn more
- WWF Statement on forests and climate change mitigation
- What is REDD
- REDD from the Roots Up - Case Study from the State of Acre, Brazil
- Download WWF's issue brief, Getting Ready for REDD: Toward an Effective and Equitable Policy on International Forest Carbon (January 2009)
- WWF inside story at UNFCCC meeting - June 2009
- WWF Climate Program
- WWF Forest Program
- U.S. Climate Change Impacts Map
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