EU Environment Commissioner proposes scheme to halt global forest loss

October 18, 2008

Coming on the heels of the announcement that Europe would be enacting stricter emissions controls, the European Union’s Environment Commissioner proposed yesterday that 5% of the funds from the EU’s emissions trading scheme be used to halt global deforestation.  Currently deforestation is responsible for nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  Additionally, half of the world’s known species and a third of the planet’s land area is forested.

The Commissioner stated he would like to reduce gross tropical deforestation by 50% by 2020 and all global forest loss by 2030 at the latest.  Enough forests are lost each year to fill a space the size of Greece.

However, since the majority of deforestation is coming from non-EU countries, the Commissioner proposed using 5% of the funds generated by the EU’s emissions trading scheme, to pay these nations to protect their forests.  This scheme would be called the Global Forest Carbon Mechanism (GFCM). 

This announcement also comes at a time when Paraguay recently announced that it would be following a policy to cut net carbon emissions from deforestation to zero by 2020.

Photo credit.

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Comments

One Comment on EU Environment Commissioner proposes scheme to halt global forest loss

  1. Jake Schmidt on Mon, 20th Oct 2008 5:38 pm

    2. This was interesting news from the EU. It will be key to see if they deliver on their proposed plans to use a portion of their auctioning revenues for addressing deforestation.

    I did a post on this with a bit more detail on their proposal: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jschmidt/eu_proposal_for_addressing_deforestation.html

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