Study supports carbon price to protect forests

A modelling study on the effects of differing land use policies on forests has found that placing a carbon price on emissions are needed to protect forest cover. The lack of a carbon price on land-use emissions is likely to lead to significant deforestation for the purpose of bio-energy crop production this century, it says.

The study, “Climate mitigation and the future of tropical landscapes” by Allison Thomson and others is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It concludes “that tropical forests are preserved near their present-day extent, and bio-energy crops emerge as an effective mitigation option, only in cases in which a climate mitigation policy that includes an economic price for land-use emissions is in place”.

Increases in agricultural productivity throughout the 21st Century will also be a key factor in reducing the pressure on forests the study finds, by reducing the area required for croplands.

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Climate mitigation and the future of tropical landscapes, PNAS