Opportunities and challenges for reducing carbon emissions from tropical deforestation and forest degradation

Background/Question/Methods Deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries significantly impacts the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Although tropical deforestation and forest degradation are significant contributors to carbon emissions, activities to reduce such emissions were not accepted under the Kyoto Protocol.  However, since 2005, developing countries have united and proposed that with incentives such as carbon-offset markets there are large opportunities to reduce these emissions where countries could receive significant financial resources to preserve the forests rather than convert to other uses.  Under a reduction in emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) mechanism, countries will need to show credible reductions in emissions measured against a baseline at specific intervals in time. Many technical issues and challenges are cited as to why including REDD for mitigating GHG emissions is fraught with problems.   Results/Conclusions In my presentation, I will present what these purported issues and challenges are and describe the status of current scientific understanding.  This will include the existing methods used for accounting for changes in forest carbon stocks, and thus emissions, from activities related to forest clearing and degradation, what new data bases and technologies are emerging to improve monitoring and what challenges and gaps still exist. The science exists for the REDD mechanism to become a reality, but there is a large need for the developed world to make a commitment to assist developing countries increase their capacity to acquire and analyze the required data and tools.