Opportunities to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), especially in developing countries, have risen to the top of the international climate policy agenda, attracting increasing attention and investment from environmental organizations, development assistance agencies and the business community.
The true costs of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Project, planned for the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon, will be much higher than dam proponents admit, according to a new independent review by a panel of 40 specialists. The panel found that the dam would have serious consequences for the region, its inhabitants, and ecosystems of the Amazon rainforest.
No matter how many times you hear them, there are some statistics that just bowl you over. The one that always stuns me is this: Imagine if you took all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world and added up their exhaust every year.
Building on an existing pledge to slash deforestation rates in the Amazon, Brazil is considering a commitment to substantially
reduce cumulative greenhouse-gas emissions over the next decade.
If the next climate treaty tackles deforestation, tropical nations will need to monitor the biomass of their forests. One ecologist has worked out a way to do that from the sky, finds Jeff Tollefson.
The United Nations climate treaty may soon include a mechanism for compensating tropical nations that succeed in reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, source of nearly one fifth of global carbon emissions.
Global temperatures may be 4 degrees Celsius hotter by the mid-2050s if current greenhouse gas emissions trends continue, said a study published on Monday.
The study, by Britain's Met Office Hadley Center, echoed a U.N. report last week which found that climate changes were outpacing worst-case scenarios forecast in 2007 by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
