International climate negotiators failed last month in Copenhagen to agree on ways to preserve tropical rainforests. But they came closer to crafting a global system to reduce deforestation — an achievement that environmentalists, businesses and nongovernmental organizations attribute to the progress they’ve made over the past year.
“Three years ago, very few people understood this as being a significant issue,” said Jeff Horowitz, co-founder of Avoided Deforestation Partners. “It’s been this quiet, dirty secret that there is an extra amount of pollution coming from tropical rainforests that needs to be dealt with.”
Forests, which store carbon, play a key role in slowing the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. The clear-cutting and burning of forests, largely in Latin America and Southeast Asia, account for nearly 20 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
Read More:
rainforestpower Headline Animator
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment