None Nature Conservancy News Room Press Releases Search All Press Releases Steven K. Ertel 703-841-2652 sertel@tnc.org

Nature Conservancy Congressional Testimony on the Role of Deforestation in Climate Change

ARLINGTON, VA — February 14, 2008 — Today, Stephanie Meeks, acting president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, testified at a hearing, held by the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, examining the role the world’s tropical forests play in regulating the planet’s climate and how increased deforestation can lead to accelerated global warming.

An excerpt of Ms. Meeks' testimony can be found below and a copy of the full written testimony is available upon request: 

“Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge that our world faces today. Every acre of land and mile of coast protected by The Nature Conservancy will be affected by climate change, and the Conservancy urges Congress to act quickly to cap and reduce emissions to levels that are sustainable for nature and people. 

Emissions from deforestation and land use change exceed those from every car, truck, train, ship and plane in the world combined. Reducing these emissions can and must play a significant role in a comprehensive solution to climate change that involves all major sources of emissions and all major emitters.

Through our work on the ground, The Nature Conservancy has demonstrated that activities to reduce deforestation can provide real and verifiable emissions reductions. As a leader on forest carbon, our conservation work includes five large-scale projects in Belize, Bolivia and Brazil. These projects have reduced and continue to reduce emissions from deforestation while also protecting over 1.5 million acres of forest land that harbor unique plants, animals, and natural communities, while bringing benefits such as jobs, infrastructure, and training to local communities. Through these projects and with our partners, we have advanced rigorous standards to ensure that emissions reductions achieved are real and verifiable. We are currently working in Indonesia and in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso to help those governments develop pilot programs to reduce deforestation emissions. 

In addition to our project work, The Nature Conservancy has joined the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in order to pilot effective approaches and a successful funding mechanism. To date, ten donor governments have also contributed to this Partnership. The Partnership would be further advanced by a decision by the U.S. government to join.

These experiences have provided, we believe, valuable lessons for the development of policies to help reduce emissions from deforestation. These recommendations include:

• Policies to combat deforestation and forest degradation should aim for emissions reductions on a scale sufficient to significantly mitigate climate change. This will require engaging governments as well as project developers. U.S. legislation should encourage tropical forest nations to develop national-scale accounting programs to reduce deforestation, by accepting credits from these countries. Countries that currently lack the capacity for national-level accounting should be encouraged to build that capacity through projects with the ultimate goal of creating a national accounting framework.
  
  
• Policies must mobilize sufficient and stable levels of funding through market mechanisms as well as through non-market mechanisms such as development assistance. In our view, carbon markets offer the greatest potential to mobilize funding at the scale sufficient to combat deforestation.
  
  
• Policies and programs should respect, protect, and build upon the rights and needs of indigenous peoples and local communities, and should support activities that contribute additional environmental benefits.
  
  
• Early action to reduce deforestation should be encouraged.

In summary, it is critical for U.S. climate legislation to address the challenge of tropical deforestation by opening access to the U.S. carbon market. This approach will offer many benefits:

• First, it will directly address the existing gap in current climate change solutions – the 20% of global emissions that result from deforestation and land use change.
  
  
• Second, it can unleash billions of dollars in private sector carbon finance to save the world’s forests and all their irreplaceable biodiversity from destruction.
  
  
• Third, crediting efforts to curb deforestation and other cost-effective forest carbon activities can help reduce the costs of domestic climate policy for U.S. companies and the economy.
  
  
• Fourth, U.S. policy that credits developing nations’ efforts to reduce deforestation will be an essential part of winning a global deal on climate change that ensures action by all major emitting countries.
  
  
• Lastly, it will improve the quality of life for local people by reducing the negative impacts of deforestation on communities while providing direct benefits to forest communities for conserving their valuable natural resources.

Mechanisms to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation are among the most promising ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the near-term. They can and must play a significant role in a comprehensive solution to climate change."

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.