Fight climate change through deforestation
As the UN Climate Change Summit ended in Copenhagen, Denmark, Friday, the world Academy of Sciences has stressed the need to address the issue of deforestation as a way of meeting the 80 per cent carbon dioxide reduction target by 2050, stressing that there cannot be solution to climate change with out it, PANA reported.
‘Tropical forests and the soils beneath them provide one of the world’s largest terrestrial carbon stores but are being degraded and deforested at the average rate of 8-15 million hectares per year. About 1.5 Gt of carbon, equivalent to 17 per cent of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) sources is released due to these activities each year,’ according to a statement from the Nigerian Acade my of Sciences (NAS), made available to PANA here.
The worldâ~s Academy of Sciences, which is made up of 52 member countries, through the InterAcademy Panel, in the statement, noted that ‘these forests play a critical role in the climate system by providing a natural carbon capture and storage function and by regulating rainfall patterns.
“Sustainable forest management can make a major contribution to climate change mitigation.”
The statement also said the proposed UNFCCC Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism are vital and integral parts of the climate framework that should be focused.
The scientists underscored the need for transparent and robust monitoring systems to verify emission reductions.
It called for research funding to help target political and economic interventions – for example, on the effective cultivation of valuable forest species – as well as encouraging more cooperation on earth observation to improve the accuracy of monitoring and evaluation of deforestation.
“SOURCE”: http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/%27fight-climate-change-through-deforestation%27-2009122140457.html
