In addition to moving from an economy powered predominantly by fossil fuels to one powered by clean energy, an important piece of the climate change mitigation puzzle is arresting deforestation. Some estimates put the total contribution to climate mitigation of stopping deforestation and continuing reforestation as high as 31 percent, and all scenarios limiting warming to below 2-degrees include halting deforestation.

By pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and into vegetation, forests — together with oceans — form a natural buffer against climate change. When carbon-rich tropical forests are burned and cleared, it poses a triple threat to climate stability. It stops the net flow of carbon from the atmosphere into the forests, releasing the stock of carbon that has accumulated in the forests over many years, and makes way for high-emissions land uses, like agriculture and mining ...

Partnering with governments, the private sector and civil society, Forest Trends, a 2010 Skoll Awardee, operates 8 distinct programs all oriented to creating, tracking, and promoting the advancement of markets, financial mechanisms, and investments to secure greater protection of forest, water and biodiversity resources, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by land conversion and forest destruction.

Read the full article about tropical deforestation and the climate risk by Anna Zimmermann Jin at Skoll.