Deforestation

How much pollution can a tree absorb? The question is at the center of a high-stakes fight over how much it will cost to curb climate change -- and who will foot the bill.

Trees are nature's antidote to smokestacks and tailpipes. Factories and cars cough out carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas produced when fossil fuel is burned. Trees inhale it. They store the carbon in their roots, trunks and leaves, and they send the oxygen back into the air.

In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand

QUERENCIA, Brazil — José Marcolini, a farmer here, has a permit from the Brazilian government to raze 12,500 acres of rain forest this year to create highly profitable new soy fields.

KAMPALA, Nov 3 (IPS) - It is a public-private partnership intended to reduce Uganda's dependence on imported vegetable oil while creating sustainable jobs and income for several thousand people. Its critics say it's destroying forests with no regard for environmental regulations.

A global emergency funding scheme to drastically reduce the destruction of tropical rainforests over the next five years was announced by the Prince of Wales today, with the US pledging $275m (£165m) towards rainforest protection.

2009 may prove to be an important turning point for tropical forests.

Lead by Brazil, which had the lowest extent of deforestation since at least the 1980s, global forest loss likely declined to its lowest level in more than a decade. Critical to the fall in deforestation was the global financial crisis, which dried up credit for forest-destroying activities and contributed to a crash in commodity prices, an underlying driver of deforestation.
 

Pablo Solón, Ambassador to the UN for the Plurinational State of Bolivia:

U.S. company Synergy Holdings has been awarded a US$15 million project to build roads and bridges necessary for the start-up of the Amalia Falls Hydro project, Head of the Privatisation Unit, Winston Brassington, confirmed last evening.
President Bharrat Jagdeo announced the award of the contract at his office yesterday, noting that efforts are being made to conclude the financial arrangements for the Hydro project.
The Inter-American Development Bank and the China Development Bank have agreed to finance the US$450 million project.

Efforts to mitigate climate change have focused on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere.

All carbon is not created equal: One ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) generated in New York from several McDonalds burgers, for instance, clocking in at 16kg per 1kg of meat, is not the equivalent of one ton of CO2 emitted in a country like South Africa, where energy generated from coal provides ba

CNN -- So few forests remain in the tiny country of Armenia that the World Bank has warned it could one day become a desert.

Investor interest in forestry is building, driven by climate change concerns, shifting and growing markets for forestry products – and the good, old-fashioned portfolio diversification benefits of an asset class which weathered the financial crisis much better than most and which offers stable long-term returns. But, argue sustainable finance experts, barriers to monetizing the environmental attributes of the sector remain high – both retarding investment but also generating opportunities for early movers.

This week Central America and the Dominican Republic launched a new plan backed by Germany to combat climate change in the region.

(Reuters) - A U.S. Senate climate bill, unveiled on Wednesday, has garnered general support from European carbon market players, though some have raised concerns over a few components of the proposed legislation.

Much of the handwringing by greens over the new climate and energy bill introduced in the Senate on May 12 has focused on the overtly controversial aspects of the legislation: the partial allowances it makes for new offshore oil drilling, for instance, and the ceiling it puts on carbon prices.