Marianne Fay, chief economist for the World Bank Sustainable Development Network, led a study on green growth, defined as growth that is effi’cient, clean, and resilient: e’cient in its use of natural resources, clean in minimizing pollution and environmental impacts, and resilient in fully accounting for natural hazards. Here, Environment Matters interviews Fay on what the study means.

In the Amazon rainforest, there is a fine balance between efforts to prevent deforestation and the desire to clear the trees for agriculture. It says much about this tension that spikes in forest loss in Brazil earlier this year have been attributed to nothing more tangible than a perceived shift in where the country's politicians intend to draw the line between the two.

Ecuador's Yasuni-ITT initiative, a pilot project to protect the climate and the rainforest has failed miserably. How might international agreements on environmental protection be achieved in the future?

To save the Amazon, Bruce Babbitt wants to isolate islands of oil and gas production amid a sea of trees.

Scientific evidence suggests that increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere are causing climate change that will result in global warming, sea -level rise and more extreme weather events. In response to anthropogenic climate change, market-based mechanisms have been proposed to mitigate these rising carbon dioxide emissions. One of these mechanisms is known
as REDD (Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation). It works to prevent the loss of forests that play a key role in sequestering carbon and regulating the global climate.