CNN asks ‘Can forests thrive in the world of carbon trading?’

In a CNN article this week, Can Forests Thrive in the World of Carbon Trading, Lara Farrar writes about the challenges and opportunities for carbon finance to address climate change mitigation.

Land use change and forest degradation are responsible for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, so avoided deforestation and reforestation have been identified as priorities in a portfolio of solutions to address climate change.

Organizations have been developing forestry projects that rely on carbon finance but the market has been slow to develop. In January, Ecosystem Marketplace released its first-ever State of the Forest Carbon Market report, Taking Root and Branching Out.

“The verification process is quite rigorous to go through and satisfy the questions, especially on how you measure emissions,” said Alexander Rau of Climate Wedge Ltd, a carbon management and investment advisory firm.

I was interviewed for the story since it profiles the forestry and other sustainable development programs implemented by the Armenia Tree Project: “The reason people want to invest in it is they understand trees and carbon have a relationship, so it is easy for the public to make an association between climate change and trees.”

“This is an evolving market and mistakes will be made. I feel confident [that] smart people can work out the details, and [it] will evolve into a market that will prove much more viable than the existing market for cutting down trees,” concludes James Lyons, a lecturer at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and former Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment in the Clinton Administration.