In December talks in Paris involving more than 200 countries may result in a new agreement aimed at reducing carbon emissions. In the months leading up to the conference, The Economist will be publishing guest columns by experts on the economic issues involved. In this post, several economists from the TSE, INRA, University of Toronto and University of Pennsylvania argue that more evidence-based policy making is needed in the battle against deforestation.
IT IS widely agreed that worldwide deforestation is bad for the environment. It is responsible for about 10% of climate-change emissions and leads to massive reductions in biodiversity. The shrinkage of the Amazonian rainforest—the most well-known example of deforestation—reached a peak of 2.8 million hectares in 2004, an area almost the size of Belgium.
How can we protect forests? One option is direct regulation: in other words the placement of restrictions on road building or the establishment of protected areas. Another option is to impose a fine or tax on forest clearing. Governments can also pay landowners to conserve their forest under a “payment for ecosystem services” (PES) contract. It might even be possible to let forest owners trade-avoided emissions on a worldwide carbon market, so that forest owners are paid by those burning fossil fuels to...Continue reading
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