The cost of avoiding deforestation

Tropical deforestation is estimated to contribute 20-25 per cent of global CO2 emissions each year. Tropical forests have particularly high carbon stocks, holding on average 50% more carbon per hectare than forests in temperate and boreal areas. They are also experiencing the highest rates of deforestation. The FAO estimates deforestation to equal 13 million hectares per year, most of it in tropical countries. But deforestation in tropical countries has been given little space in the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto protocol. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) notably allows credits for afforestation and reforestation but not for avoided deforestation.

There has also been increasing attention to deforestation recently and several calls from governments of countries with tropical forest  for financial mechanisms to provide positive incentives for developing countries to reduce their emissions from deforestation.

In 2007 the UK Treasury commissioned an independent review (the Stern Review) to assess the evidence and build understanding of the economics of climate change. IIED' Maryanne Grieg-Gran contributed to this review with a study of the costs of avoided deforestation.  She produced a global estimate of the cost of cutting the rate of deforestation in half within a decade.