The Foreign Service Journal, February 2008

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23 he Amazon River Basin, also known as Amazonia, is inextricably linked with cli- mate change on several levels. First, it is not only an important source of greenhouse gases but has a great ability to absorb such gases. Second, it constitutes a linchpin to the climate further south. And, finally, it appears to be nearing a threshold change; i.e., a sud- den, fundamental shift in conditions. The marked recent increase in greenhouse gases over pre-industrial levels comes from two sources: ancient and modern photosynthesis. As is well known, the combustion of fossil fuels (gas, oil and coal) releas- es energy acquired by ancient photosynthesis and trapped in geological formations, along with green- house gases. And it is doing so within a relative instant in geological time compared to how long those fuels took to be created. Less appreciated is the fact that, at the same time, global deforestation and burning are similarly releas- ing energy and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in sufficient quantities that they account for the origin of approximately 20 percent of the annual increase in CO 2 concentrations. Moreover, in this case the photo- synthesis is essentially contemporary, so the energy released is harnessed for no useful purpose. Taking both processes into account, the four biggest greenhouse gas-emitting nations are the United States and China (due to their use of fossil fuels), plus Brazil and Indonesia (because of deforestation). So clearly, reducing deforestation can make an important contri- bution to reducing emissions and slowing the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Similarly, active reforestation and afforestation (the process of estab- lishing a forest on land that has not been forested for a long time) can play an important role in removing car- bon dioxide from the atmosphere, especially in the early years of rapid growth. The latter two measures are part of the “clean development mechanism” of carbon trading, the inter- national instrument set up under the Kyoto Protocol of the climate change convention. Reducing deforesta- tion, a policy proposal technically known as “reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation,” or REDD, was discussed for the first time this past December at the Bali meeting of the U.N. Framework F O C U S O N C L I M AT E C H A N G E A MAZONIA ON THE B RINK T HE VULNERABILITY OF THE A MAZON FOREST MAKES ACTION ON THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA EVEN MORE URGENT . B Y T HOMAS E. L OVEJOY T Thomas E. Lovejoy is president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, and has worked in the Brazilian Amazon since graduate school. A specialist in the interface of science and envi- ronmental policy, he coined the term “biological diversi- ty” and originated the concept of debt-for-nature swaps.