Source: Huffington Post
We are only a few weeks away from the COP21 climate summit in Paris. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 11 per cent of global carbon emissions come from deforestation. That is about the same amount as the emissions from all the world’s cars. Efforts to stop deforestation are more important than ever.
Deforestation has been on the agenda for a long time, and the Norwegian government is behind the most successful attempt to tackle this challenge. The idea that was developed in 2007 is so simple, but has proven so powerful: in a world faced with massive deforestation, the simplest and cheapest mitigation effort would be to reward communities for not cutting trees. The result was the Norwegian Climate and Forest Initiative (REDD+). It had an immediate effect.
The growth of REDD+
The initiative to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) has gathered support worldwide. In less than a decade, REDD+ has contributed to reducing one of the most dangerous global trends, one that threatens not only climate but also some of the world’s most important reserves of biodiversity and the traditional homes of indigenous peoples. It has contributed to significant reductions in deforestation in both Brazil and Indonesia, and Norway recently presented a new agreement for the Congo Basin.