News-Record.com

And from Friday:

"In my community, many people are driving less to reduce their impact on the climate, knowing that cars create a massive amount of global warming pollution. What most of them don’t know is that tropical deforestation is responsible for twenty percent of greenhouse emissions worldwide – more than the entire international transport sector.

At the UN Conference in Poland today, Greenpeace made an exciting presentation, its Forests for Climate plan, which protects tropical forests and fights the climate crisis. This proposal would benefit the climate, biodiversity, local communities, and indigenous people. Not only do tropical forests contain half of all life on earth, they help maintain healthy ecosystems and keep the climate in check. When tropical forests are destroyed, they release the carbon they store into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change.

Developing countries around the world have voiced the need for help with tropical deforestation. They are advocating for an international climate agreement that includes this issue. Forests for Climate would apply to a diverse group of nations with different political situations and deforestation issues. Democratic Republic of the Congo, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Brazil are each unique countries that were represented at the event. Each presenter showed photographs and discussed the particular issues their country faces because of deforestation. They compellingly called for leaders to end tropical deforestation while protecting local and indigenous communities and the climate.

Bill Hare, a fellow with Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and Roman Czebiniak, an advisor on climate change and forests with Greenpeace explained the way the plan works in more detail to the packed room. Unlike risky carbon “offset” schemes -- which could allow countries like the US to actually increase pollution by paying for forest protection in other countries -- Forests for Climate makes industrialized countries help stop deforestation on top of their commitments to reduce pollution at home. It would set up a fund to both reward countries for forest conservation and build capacity in countries with limited resources. This means a wide range of countries could participate. The more countries taking part, the more forests we can protect.

We all know that the climate is in crisis. Astoundingly, ending tropical deforestation would reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth. Greenpeace is in Poland to make sure that the world leaders meeting here get serious with strong solutions like Forests for Climate that will truly tackle climate change problem."