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Can Politicians Provide the Missing Magic?

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Can Politicians Provide the Missing Magic? CIFOR's Vision We envision a world where: · Forests are high on the political agenda · People recognise the value of forests for maintaining livelihoods and ecosystems · Decisions that in fluence forests and the people that depend on them are based on solid science and principles of good governance, and re flect the perspectives of developing countries and forest peoples CIFOR June 2009 www.cifor.cgiar.org Photo courtesy of IISD Can politicians provideCome to CO 2 the missing magic? Shaping the global agenda for ‘Protecting forests means fighting for the very survival of humanity,’ Yvo de Boer (above), Executive forests and climate change Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told participants at Forest Day 2 on 6 December 2008 in Poznań, Poland. Shaping the global agenda Held in parallel with the UNFCCC 14th Conferencefor forests of andthe climate Parties change (COP-14), Forest Day 2 attracted more than 900 participants from around the world. The event built on the success of Forest Day 1 in Bali in December 2007, which focused the world’s attention on the important role forests can play in mitigating climate change. Negotiators hope to finalise the post-Kyoto agreement at COP-15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. Continued on page 7 Sunday, 13 December 2009 Come to Radisson SAS Falconer Hotel Copenhagen, Denmark Coinciding with the UNFCCC COP 15 www.cifor.cgiar.org Shaping the global agenda for forests and climate change Hosted by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, the Government of Denmark and CIFOR Sunday, 13 December 2009 Radisson SAS Falconer Hotel Copenhagen, Denmark Coinciding with the UNFCCC COP 15 www.cifor.cgiar.org Hosted by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, the Government of Denmark and CIFOR June 2009 2 CIFOR 2009 is possibly the most important year for forests in living memory. We are in the final stretch of the road to Copenhagen, where negotiators hope to finalise a post-Kyoto global climate DG's agreement. In Denmark in December, world leaders will decide how and to what extent we will use forests to mitigate the message emissions that cause climate change, and how the costs and benefits will be distributed. The most recent data and analysis from a number of sources suggest the effects of climate change are proceeding more quickly than previously predicted. Further, there is an emerging consensus that it will be next to impossible to avoid catastrophic impacts unless reductions in forest-based emissions are added to dramatic cuts in fossil fuel-based emissions from industrial countries. In particular, the possibility that global warming will lead to a vicious circle of drought, forest fire, increased emissions and further warming puts the long-term carbon storage potential of forests at risk. We know that deforestation and land-use change account for one-fifth of annual global carbon emissions. But what has only just been revealed—in a study conducted by the University of Leeds, CIFOR and other partners—is just how effective old-growth tropical forests are in removing carbon from the atmosphere. The study, released in a recent edition of Nature, estimates that tropical forests absorb just under 5 billion of the 32 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted through human activity each year. That is almost one sixth of our emissions. These new findings demonstrate how much we need to learn in order to respond effectively to the challenges of climate change, the significant returns we can gain from investing in forest research and how crucial forests are to achieving targets set for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You may have noticed a new phrase on CIFOR publications: ‘Thinking beyond the canopy’. It refers to the need to address the underlying drivers of deforestation if we are to make real and lasting progress in conserving forests and improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent people. Many of these drivers lie outside the forest sector, for example, in transportation and infrastructure development, trade and investment policies and law enforcement practices. At CIFOR, we are thinking beyond the canopy as we address these drivers in our six priority research areas. To learn more about our new strategy and priority research domains, see www.cifor.cgiar.org/AboutCIFOR/Strategy2008/index.htm. Thinking beyond the canopy was also a key message that came out of Forest Day 2, held in parallel with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 14th Conference of the Parties (COP-14) in Poznań, Poland, last December. Many of the more than 900 participants in Forest Day 2 said we must reach out to and engage not only COP negotiators but others who work beyond the forest sector in areas that are driving deforestation and forest degradation. Along with our co-hosts from the Danish Government and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, CIFOR is deeply involved in planning for Forest Day 3 in Copenhagen in December, and we are conscious of the unique opportunities 2009 affords for achieving better forest management. I encourage you to join CIFOR scientists this year as they work to equip COP-15 decision-makers and others working within and beyond the forest community with the knowledge and advice they need to make good decisions. Given the current economic downturn, it is imperative that the global community remain committed to the inter-related objectives of sustainable forest management, poverty reduction and climate security, and not use the financial crisis as a convenient excuse to lower aspirations. In light of the profound consequences of losing the economic, environmental and cultural services of forests, not to mention their carbon storage capacity, the risk of inaction is too great. Frances Seymour Director General 3 June 2009 CIFOR feature Photo by Bruno Locatelli Average tree size increasing as trees absorb more carbon An international team of scientists, including atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, CIFOR researchers, has discovered that the average substantially buffering the rate of climate change,’ size of rainforest trees is increasing as they says the report’s lead author, Dr Simon Lewis of the store more carbon from the atmosphere and University of Leeds. slow climate change. The reason why the trees are getting bigger and According to the report ‘Increasing Carbon mopping up carbon is unclear. A leading suspect is Storage in Intact African Tropical Forests’, published the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere itself, as a letter in Nature (19 February 2009), tropical trees which may be acting like a fertiliser and spurring tree in undisturbed forests around the world are absorbing growth. Lewis warns the world not to be complacent, nearly one-fifth of the carbon dioxide released by however. ‘Whatever the cause, we cannot rely on this burning fossil fuels. That amount is significantly sink forever. Even if we preserve all remaining tropical 'Tropical forest greater than the greenhouse gas emissions produced forest, these trees will not continue getting bigger trees are absorbing by the world’s transport sector. indefinitely.’ The researchers estimate that remaining tropical According to the Intergovernmental Panel on about 18 percent forests remove a massive 4.8 billion tonnes of carbon Climate Change, human activities are responsible for of the CO2 added dioxide emissions from the atmosphere each year. emitting 32 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year to the atmosphere A previously unknown carbon sink in Africa alone globally, but only 15 billion tonnes actually stays in each year from is soaking up 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide the atmosphere, adding to climate change. The new annually. research shows where some of the ‘missing’ 17 billion burning fossil The 40 year study of African tropical forests, tonnes per year is going. fuels, substantially which account for one-third of the world’s total ‘It’s well known that about half of the “missing” buffering the rate of tropical forest, shows that over decades each hectare carbon is being dissolved in the oceans, and that the climate change.' of intact African forest has trapped an extra 0.6 other half is going somewhere on land tonnes of carbon per year. in vegetation and soils, but we were not sure precisely Combined with data from South America and where,’ says Lewis. ‘According to our study, about half Dr Simon Lewis Asia, the study’s analysis of the records of 250,000 the total carbon “land sink” is in tropical forest trees.’ University of Leeds trees reveals that, on average, remaining undisturbed One of the report’s co-authors, Dr Douglas Sheil, forests are trapping carbon and thus constitute a who works with CIFOR and Uganda’s Institute of globally significant carbon sink. Tropical Forest Conservation, says he had previously ‘Tropical forest trees are absorbing about been unconvinced about the role forests play in 18 percent of the carbon dioxide added to the removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. June 2009 4 CIFOR ‘I was like many scientists who used to dismiss The report’s implications for future carbon the environmental campaigners’ slogan that forests payment schemes are echoed in the comments of are the lungs of the world,’ says Sheil. ‘Before I another of the report’s co-authors, Dr Lee White, worked on this study, I believed that forests were Gabon’s chief climate change scientist. basically in equilibrium with the atmosphere, ‘The removal of nearly 5 billion tonnes of carbon neither adding to nor subtracting from its gaseous dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, composition. Our findings give the lungs metaphor based on realistic prices for a tonne of carbon, should a basis after all: Forests are drawing carbon dioxide be valued at around US $19.9 billion per year,’ says from the biosphere just as our lungs remove it from White.
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