REDD+ and Indigenous Peoples - a briefing paper for policy makers

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2007 confirmed that deforestation causes 18-20% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. This amount is more than the total carbon emissions from global transport sector that relies heavily on fossil fuels. Deforestation is, therefore, a major cause of climate change.

Apart from this, forests are also referred to as “sinks.” They have the ability to ab-sorb – or sequester – carbon from the atmosphere. It is estimated that forests are able to sequester 5 billion tons of carbon or around 20% of the total annual carbon emis-sions from human activity. Forests are also large carbon reservoirs. In its biomass alone, global forest vegetation stores 283 Gigatonnes(283 billion tonnes) of carbon. Carbon stored in forest soils (top 30cm) and litter, and in dead wood amount to 283 GtC and 38 GtC, respectively. In 2005, the total carbon content of forests has been estimated at 638 GtC, more than the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Thus, forests have been identified as crucial to the mitigation of climate change. If the global goal of limiting temperature rise to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius is to be achieved, then deforestation and forest degradation on the one hand, and the role of forests in carbon sequestration must be factored in the equation.