Welcome ! As a young French Marketing professional with a Master's in International Management I have been selecting since January 2007 the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change, cleantech and the world energy sector. Sounds great ? Don't hesitate to subscribe now !
Yes, you read that right : twelve (12!) billion trees have been planted within the UNEP Billion Tree Campaign. The landmark was reached in November in Kenya. (Was it an homage to Wangari Maathai ?) To the official website :
” China is the leading participating country, having planted a total of 2.8 billion trees under the campaign. India is currently in second place with 2.1 billion trees, followed by Ethiopia, Mexico and Turkey. “
I am starting to wonder how all these trees will impact climate change ? In any case, their effect can’t be negative. Now, let’s plant even more trees. The campaign is willing to reach 14 billion !
To the WWF : “ It’s possible to reduce deforestation to near zero by 2020, but delaying action to save forests by even a decade means double the area of forests lost by 2030 “
” The report finds that reducing deforestation to near zero would also bring global emissions from forest destruction close to zero, but delaying this reduction until 2030 would mean sacrificing 69 million hectares of forest worldwide. “
Such a delay would bring an additional 24 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In comparison, 33 gigatons of this gas were released in 2010 alone worldwide… Continue »
You might not have read this name before, and this despite the six times it has been featured on my blog but Wangari Maathai – who died on Sunday at the age of 71 – was a famous environmentalist, well-known for her Green Belt Movement.
This is also why she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and why she was considered by many a role model. I personally quickly got to know her tremendous work on planting trees and empowering women in her home country, Kenya.
The environmental cause has lost one of its most important leaders. Similarly, the African continent has lost one of its best spokesperson, but I am sure many others will step up to continue her causes. Continue »
To Sustainablog : ” It turns out we’ve been underestimating the benefits created by forests in the last case: a new study published in Science shows that “Forests play an even greater role in Earth’s climate system than previously known.”
” According to an AP report on the study, “Wooded areas across the planet soak up fully a third of the fossil fuels released into the atmosphere each year, some 2.4 billion [tons] of carbon…”
” Reforested land soaks up an additional 1.6 tons. But, of course, deforestation is still a massive trend, and it costs us 2.9 billion tons of carbon emissions every year. ” Continue »
According to the United Nations’ Billion Tree Campaign, India planted two billion trees since 2007. This brings the amounts of trees planted globally to no less than ten billion. These are fantastic news !
At the beginning of this project, the UNEP wanted to plant a billion trees. This was at the time a very optimistic goal. Now, nott only have we succeeded but we have done ten times more. This is truly encouraging.
All these trees will absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, thus limiting greenhouse gases emissions. But we shouldn’t forget we still have to stop deforestation…
The year is beginning with many good news. After the huge wind energy plan in the UK, another good sign that climate change mitigation slowly but surely surfaces as a key preoccupation at a global scale.
Indeed the Brazilian goverment signed a National Policy on Climate Change bill which is due to help the country cut its emissions by 39 percent by 2020 from a business as usual scenario. (cf. my previous post on that topic)
On the other side of the Planet, Indonesia is also willing to act on deforestation and start reforesting. Both countries need the help of developed nations to reach their ambitious objectives. Continue »
Since I read Collapse back to 2007 I have been an advocate of both stopping deforestation and reforesting as both are needed to stop soil erosion in a local scale and stop climate change on a global scale.
It seems the Copenhagen climate conference was not a complete failure as the Kyoto Protocol’s successor is due to tackle deforestation – a huge part of greenhouse gases emissions – via the REDD program.
As the New York Times stated it : “ It is likely to be the most concrete thing that comes out of Copenhagen – and it is a very big thing.” Continue »
While in the train going to Paris to attend the Green Job forum I read an interesting article on how banking on trees could enable us to fight off climate change and give money to enable developing nations to protect their forests.
The United Nations REDD program – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries – may enable us to do just that by financing the protection of existing rainforests.
Time Magazine investigated in Indonesia’s Aceh province as the country is the third greenhouse gases emitter behind China and the United States because of its massive deforestation. Continue »
The UNEP Billion Tree Campaign‘s goal was to plant seven billion trees before the Copenhagen meeting in December. To today’s news the goal was reached as China planted 2.6 billion trees to support the campaign.
This shows at least two things : when China starts on something, it is unstoppable. The country’s efforts on climate change mitigation and pollution reduction are each day bigger.
Second message : people around the world are more than willing to mitigate climate change. This is an important message for our representatives meeting this week in New York. Continue »
I was previously noting that the Sahara desert is slowly turning green. To a new study hurrying the process and extending it to the Australian outback by planting eucalyptus trees (left) could absorb our global CO2 emissions.
Indeed this geoengineering idea would absorb eight billion tons of carbon a year. But we shouldn’t forget that like with any geoengineering project this would need huge funds and many technical difficulties would arise.
All this is pretty interesting but for two trillion dollars per year, I believe that investing in the protection of existing forests would prove as profitable. Continue »
