REDD - Paying Countries to Keep Their Trees

Green Banks: Paying Countries to Keep their Trees
By Bryan Walsh for Time

In 1997 TNC, U.S. utility companies American Electric Power (AEP) and PacifiCorp, and oil major BP Amoco paid Bolivia $10.8 million for the credits represented by all the carbon and potential greenhouse gas that is locked inside trees. In return, the government simply has to ensure that the forest remains standing and healthy for the next 30 years. It's called avoided deforestation, and projects like this may represent one of the most promising ways to simultaneously slow the destruction of tropical forests and the pace of climate change — if we can get it right.

[The] promise of avoided deforestation, in which rich countries pay to keep rain forests standing and receive carbon credits in return is also known by the acronym REDD, for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Currently, the international carbon cap-and-trade system organized by the Kyoto Protocol only recognizes industrial projects — such as a rich country paying to improve energy efficiency at a power plant — or programs to actively reforest land already cleared. It doesn't recognize avoided deforestation. Supporters are confident that when the world meets for the annual U.N. summit on climate change in Poznan, Poland, this month, avoided deforestation will be one of the main topics of discussion. "This is too important not to be front and center on everyone's minds," says Jake Schmidt, head of international climate policy for the New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "It will be a major focus."..

An estimated 50,000 sq. mi. (129,500 sq km) of forest are lost to the logger's ax or to fire every year, and that hurts the planet in two very important ways. Rare plants and animals, many still undiscovered, depend on the forests — especially the rich rain forests that encircle the earth either side of the equator. When the forests disappear, all that wildlife disappears as well. But trees also contain carbon, and while they live, they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, compensating in part for the greenhouse gases spewed into the air from cars, power plants and factories. When trees are cut down or burned, that carbon is put back into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. At least 20% of annual global carbon emissions come from deforestation. If we can't stop forest loss, we'll struggle to stop climate change...