Understanding REDD: A Washington Monthly Event on Carbon Emissions and Deforestation

October 30, 2009

On October 30, panelists Tia Nelson, Nigel Purvis, and Steve Schwartzman discussed the new market mechanism, REDD — Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation — that aims to allow residents of tropical forest properties to earn more money from standing forests than from their removal. Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of all carbon emissions into the atmosphere, more than the combined emissions of every car, truck, ship, plane and train on the planet.

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Bipartisan panel’s Purvis lays out recommendations for U.S. on deforestation

E&E TV • October 28, 2009

Earlier this year, the bipartisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests launched in hopes of raising awareness about the role that forests can play in slowing climate change. During today’s OnPoint, Nigel Purvis, executive director of the commission and president of Climate Advisers, discusses new recommendations for the Obama administration and Congress on how best to address greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation. The recommendations, laid out in the commission’s new report, “Protecting the Climate Forests,” urge the United States to take a leading role in halving emissions from tropical forest destruction within a decade. Purvis also explains how action on deforestation will play into the Copenhagen talks.

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Forests' crucial climate role

The Washington Post • October 21, 2009

A great deal has been learned over the past 15 years about how to reduce carbon emissions from tropical deforestation in ways that benefit local people and the global environment. Stopping deforestation is a complex undertaking, but because it accounts for 17 percent of global emissions, practical solutions are essential.

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Senate, Consider Deforestation as Part of Climate Bill

Roll Call • October 20, 2009

It is imperative that the United States find effective and economically viable solutions to the climate crisis. Our elected officials and business leaders ask how we can afford the global transition to a low-carbon economy. Around the globe, developing nations ask how they can afford to reduce their emissions without sacrificing their hopes for a better life. There is no single answer, but there is one unexpected solution that offers hope on both fronts.

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Major bipartisan Commission calls for U.S.
leadership to protect ‘climate forests’

High-level group’s report recommends American-led effort to halve emissions from deforestation by 2020 as cost-effective climate solution

October 7, 2009 Washington, DC — Washington, D.C. – With momentum building in the United States for cost-effective action on climate change, the bipartisan, multi-sector Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests released its report today calling on the United States to lead a global effort to halve emissions from tropical forest destruction within a decade. The report identifies tropical deforestation as a threat to vital national interests and recommends that U.S. policymakers and the international community move rapidly to scale-up a global effort to protect tropical forests as the most cost-effective way to achieve fast, large-scale reductions in CO2 emissions.

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Report highlights deforestation

Politico • October 7, 2009

A new bipartisan coalition of business, government and environmental leaders is asking the Senate to make deforestation a centerpiece of the climate bill by allocating billions to fund tropical forest preservation programs in developing nations.

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Tropical forests: Will the U.S. ride to the rescue?

Los Angeles Times • October 6, 2009

Saving the rain forest is no longer just about helping such countries as Brazil and Indonesia preserve their exotic fauna and flora. Now it is about benefiting American corporations too. A report released today by a blue-ribbon panel estimates that if American companies invest about $9 billion by 2020 in preserving tropical forests in developing countries, they can save about $50 billion that they would have had to spend on cleaning up their own carbon dioxide emissions.

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Bipartisan panel calls for billions to slow deforestation

E&E News ClimateWire • October 7, 2009

A high‐level, bipartisan commission is urging the U.S. to direct billions of dollars to developing nations that are willing to slash tropical deforestation rates and avoid carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon releases from forest destruction today account for 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the world's entire transport sector. Flipping the financial incentives so that tropical nations will instead protect these forests could halve deforestation emissions by 2020 and bring them to a net‐zero sum by 2030. The group calls this goal "ambitious but achievable." The Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, in releasing a policy roadmap today, argues that without such efforts, it will be impossible to avert a climate crisis. Its goal is to increase the visibility of the issue and to direct Congress and the Obama administration toward "effective, politically viable" forest protections.

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Look, Up in the Sky!

The New York Times • October 7, 2009

President Obama was hardly the biggest star that 150 Washington middle schoolers got to look up to at a party on the White House lawn Wednesday evening.

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Tropical forests: Will the U.S. ride to the rescue?

Los Angeles Times • October 7, 2009

Saving the rain forest is no longer just about helping such countries as Brazil and Indonesia preserve their exotic fauna and flora. Now it is about benefiting American corporations too. A report released today by a blue-ribbon panel estimates that if American companies invest about $9 billion by 2020 in preserving tropical forests in developing countries, they can save about $50 billion that they would have had to spend on cleaning up their own carbon dioxide emissions.

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Tropical forests: Will the U.S. ride to the rescue?

Los Angeles Times • October 7, 2009

Saving the rain forest is no longer just about helping such countries as Brazil and Indonesia preserve their exotic fauna and flora. Now it is about benefiting American corporations too. A report released today by a blue-ribbon panel estimates that if American companies invest about $9 billion by 2020 in preserving tropical forests in developing countries, they can save about $50 billion that they would have had to spend on cleaning up their own carbon dioxide emissions.

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Closer to a Deal in the Senate, Further Away in Bangkok

Wall Street Journal • October 7, 2009

paperCrude oil futures rose toward $72 a barrel ahead of an expected decline in U.S. inventories, Bloomberg reports. And the WSJ has more on Exxon’s $4 billion bet on offshore oil in Ghana: “If Exxon Mobil likes this stuff, then everyone knows it’s good,” says one analyst.

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CLIMATE CHANGE: Experts Call for U.S. Leadership on Deforestation

WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (IPS) - A bipartisan commission is calling for the United States to make halting global deforestation a major priority in both domestic and international climate change policies. The Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, composed of influential Washington insiders, released a report Wednesday outlining changes to U.S. policy that it says must be made to prevent catastrophic climate change.

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Bipartisan Report Claims Solving the Climate Crisis "Depends on Tropical Forests"

Desmogblog.com • October 7, 2009

The bipartisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests released an extensive report today calling on the Senate to consider tropical forest preservation as a central necessity in the climate bill in front of Congress. The group suggests that solving the climate crisis will be “nearly impossible without urgent efforts to stem tropical deforestation.”

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Energy and Global Warming News for October 7: IEA says "China will be able to slow of its emissions much faster than commonly assumed"

Climate Progress • October 7, 2009

Little good can be said about the worst economic slump since the 1930s, but it has produced at least one piece of positive news: the downturn will make it a bit easier to slow the rise in emissions responsible for climate change. The International Energy Agency made that prediction in a report Tuesday on global greenhouse gas emissions. Because of slower economic growth, the agency slashed, by 5 percent, its estimate of how much greenhouse gas emissions will be produced in 2020.

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Curtailing tropical deforestation vital to U.S. interests

Mongabay.com • October 8, 2009

Little good can be said about the worst economic slump since the 1930s, but it has produced at least one piece of positive news: the downturn will make it a bit easier to slow the rise in emissions responsible for climate change. The International Energy Agency made that prediction in a report Tuesday on global greenhouse gas emissions. Because of slower economic growth, the agency slashed, by 5 percent, its estimate of how much greenhouse gas emissions will be produced in 2020.

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A Clarion Call: Fight Climate Change by Protecting Forests

The Nature Conservancy • October 7, 2009

Little good can be said about the worst economic slump since the 1930s, but it has produced at least one piece of positive news: the downturn will make it a bit easier to slow the rise in emissions responsible for climate change. The International Energy Agency made that prediction in a report Tuesday on global greenhouse gas emissions. Because of slower economic growth, the agency slashed, by 5 percent, its estimate of how much greenhouse gas emissions will be produced in 2020.

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Podesta, Chafee to Lead Commission
on Climate and Tropical Forests

Bipartisan Group of Leaders to Offer Consensus Recommendations for Tropical Forest Conservation Provisions in U.S. Climate Policy

June 18, 2009 Washington, DC — A high-profile group of U.S. leaders in business, government, advocacy, conservation, global development, science and national security have assembled to provide bipartisan recommendations to Congress and the President about how to reduce tropical deforestation through U.S. climate change policies.

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High-level commission named to explore
forest losses and offsets

By Lisa Friedman • June 19, 2009 • ClimateWire

Hoping to harness a rising awareness of the role forests can play in slowing climate change, a high-level group of lawmakers, executives and national security experts has launched a new commission on forest policy.

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