Carbon Footprints

In the UK the BBC News is reporting that Nature loss ‘dwarfs bank crisis’.

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

This report (download the interim report - 8MB PDF, or see the report’s homepage) helps put the current global financial situation into perspective. The world’s finances will mend again, have no doubt about that, but our forests are vanishing, some with little hope of recovery. The forests most at risk belong to countries, and people, that can ill afford the costs of preserving them, or who simply benefit financially from the ripping up of these precious resources. Carbon Planet has always proudly championed forestry, both reforestation and avoiding deforestation. As the current financial scandals play out, we’ll keep working hard, doing our part to help ensure that the world’s forests, and forest peoples, don’t get left behind. — DS

Technorati Tags: avoided deforestation, Climate Change, economics, financial crisis, forests, GFC, global warming, REDD

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 5:56 am and is filed under Climate Change, The Carbon Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.