Abstract:

Tropical forests play a significant role in our climate systems, as well as in human
induced climate change. Deforestation in the tropics has turned out to be one of the
largest sources of current emissions of carbon dioxide, which is the most important green
house gas, Destruction of tropical forests is second only to combustion of fossil fuels in
contributing to global warming (IPCC 2001). Deforestation accounts for up to 20% of
global co2 emissions and for up to 25% of all global green house gas emissions. Almost
all this is attributable to forest conversion in the tropics (FAO, 2006). The MCC, 2000
estimates that about 270 Giga tones of Carbon have been emitted from the burning of
fossil fuels and the production of cement, whereas 136 Gt C come from land use change,
mainly through forest conversion. Annual emissions from land use change in the 1990s
were approximately 1.6 Gt C, almost entirely due to loss of approximately 13 million ha
of tropical forests per year (FAO, 2006). Deforestation is also the largest source of
emissions in the developing world (Houghton, 2005).
The current legal framework under the United Nations Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol (KP) do not contain any mechanism to reward efforts
aimed at preventing deforestation in developing countries. Instead, the possibilities to
gain carbon credits from forestry activities under the Clean Development Mechanism are
limited to projects involving forest plantations (UNFCCC, 2001). However,
environmentalists have been pointing out that the scale of tropical deforestation in
contributing to climate change corresponds to the potential of avoided deforestation (AD)
as solution.
The proposal to include Avoided Deforestation (AD) in future climate regimes is being
debated. The proposal suggests creating a mechanism of compensating countries which
reduce their deforestation rates and thus their greenhouse emissions. Initial responses to
the AD proposal has largely been favorable and this proposal will be considered after
the Kyoto protocol's first commitment period, which ends in 2012