Forests must stay to end climate chaos

A government advisor on climate change has said that rich nations should pay poorer countries not to cut down forests.

Johan Eliasch told the government that the world is on ‘borrowed time’ when it comes to tackling climate change.

Of particular threat to the climate is ’slash and burn’ agriculture, where rainforests are cleared to release fertile land for farming.

This practice is responsible for 17-20% of the world’s carbon emissions, equivalent to the emissions of the US or China alone.

Not only does this release millions of tonnes of carbons into the atmosphere, but it also reduces the world’s ability to cope with the carbon, as rainforests are a key carbon reducer.

Having been cut down, rainforests can take hundreds of years to be restored to their original state, if they are restored at all.

Eliasch said that saving forests is a must if climate change is to be fully tackled.

He added that deforestation will continue whilst it makes economic sense for countries to cut down their trees.

According to Eliasch, countries that protect their forests should be given financial rewards for doing so in the guise of ‘carbon offset’ credits purchased by countries in the industrialised west.

Meanwhile, countries that cut down forests should be financially penalised.

Eliasch estimates that under such a system, deforestation could be halved by 2020, and the forest industry could be carbon neutral by 2030.

The government has been warned that paying developing nations not to cut down rainforests will result in widespread corruption and human rights abuses.

Campaign groups are concerned that the money could end up in hands of corrupt governments or logging companies and be used to drive indigenous people off forest land.

Greenpeace said that selling carbon credits is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for the biggest carbon polluters in the industrial world, allowing them to carry on polluting unpenalised.