Approximately 289 million hectares worth of tropical forests ⎯ a size equivalent to India or four times Texas ⎯ could be wiped off the earth by 2050, if we don’t do anything about it. An analysis by the Center for Global Development has predicted that during the next 35 years we would burn through one sixth of the planetary carbon budget.
How was the data collected for this analysis?
The analysis led by Jonah Busch and Jens Engelmann projected future emissions due to deforestation using measurements culled from 18 million satellite images of forest loss between 2001 and 2012. The analysis covered factors related to topography, accessibility, protected areas, crop suitability and forest carbon stocks. They also looked at how land users have responded to cost fluctuations in agricultural produce in the past and used that to predict how they would respond to the costs of forest conservation policies.
What does the future of tropical forests look like?
The results of the analysis look scary, but we do have options to deal with it. It is estimated that the carbon emissions associated with the widespread deforestation will be close to 169 billion tons⎯that’s the same as keeping 44,000 coal plants running for a year. But the good news is we can avoid this by put a price on carbon. The emissions could be reduced by quarter by attaching a $20-per-ton carbon cost and by nearly half if tropical forest countries are charged $50-per-ton carbon.
Saving the Tropical Forests: Why is preventing deforestation better than other emission-cutting measures?
Curbing deforestation is a cheap, efficient means of reducing emission; it’s better than some of the other measures used. For example, the European Union produced the same number of emissions as deforestation did between 2001 and 2012. However, the cost of reducing emissions by forest conservation is just one fifth the cost of the European Union cutting emissions to the same extent. There is also an incentive in this strategy for rich countries to pay tropical countries to maintain their tropical forests. This way, the rich countries could reduce their costs for keeping the earth green, and the tropical countries could earn money by maintaining it so. Also, we can predict how future deforestation would change, based on future agricultural prices. Low prices result in low deforestation, which could help tailor the carbon costs accordingly.
This analysis outlined that reducing deforestation is one of the⎯if not the only⎯cost-effective means to reduce our carbon footprint. It would be interesting to see if the United Nations Summit in December would discuss how this initiative could be funded.
What do you know about climate change?
Tropical forests are too beautiful to die out. Make sure you preserve them.
We Could Lose Tropical Forests the Size of India
India has large number of forests such as tropical, reserve and rain forests. India is blessed with an amazing range of rainforests right from the North Western ghats to southern ones. Click here to know more about rain forests in India.
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