Root and branch reform: if carbon markets aren’t working, how do we save our forests?
- Media Manager
- Dec 20, 2023
- 1 min read
The Guardian
Written By: Patrick Greenfield
Published: December 20th, 2023
Keeping the world’s remaining forests standing is one of the most important environmental challenges of the 21st century. Humanity will not limit global heating to safe levels or stem the ongoing loss of wildlife without them. From the boreal forest that stretches around northern Europe, Siberia and Canada, to the Amazon, Earth’s forests are some of the most biodiverse places on the planet, home to species found nowhere else.
Yet all too often, forests are worth more money dead than alive – despite promises from global leaders to halt deforestation. Their exploitation has pushed many plants, animals and fungi to the brink of extinction, while slowly degrading their ability to generate rainfall, sequester carbon and cool the planet.
In the race to create incentives to preserve forests rather than cut them down, the carbon-offsetting market has taken centre stage. Forest-offsetting schemes often sell credits on the basis that they will fund conservation schemes, protecting sections of forest that would otherwise be cut down – thereby preventing carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
Scientific research and journalistic investigations, however, indicate that many of these schemes are essentially “hot air” and failing to protect forests as promised. As some major firms reassess their use of forest credits, it raises questions about how we pay for and incentivise the protection of these crucial ecosystems.
