Why Reforestation Is a Must-Have in Climate Change Legislation

Rodrigo, the 38-year-old owner of a small ranch near Sao Felix do Xingu in Brazil's Amazon rain forest, looked thoughtfully at the floor of his modest home and at his 12-year-old son. "We definitely want to comply with our government's Forest Plan," he told us, adding, "though it is hard."

We had traveled to the Amazon as members of a bipartisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests. The organization is co-chaired by Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican senator, and former White House chief of staff John Podesta. Our mission was to learn about Brazil's efforts to reduce its rate of tropical deforestation, and the level of political support those efforts enjoy.

Brazil's success depends on small farmers like Rodrigo -- and the world's success depends in large measure on Brazil. While attention in the United States has focused, quite rightly, on our own efforts at reducing fossil fuel emissions and ramping up clean energy alternatives, the disquieting fact is that tropical deforestation contributes 17 percent of global emissions. This is more than all the world's cars and trucks and planes combined. Brazil and Indonesia together account for about one half of that deforestation. In Brazil this loss is mostly due to conversion of forests to pastures.

After visiting with Rodrigo as well as with owners of much larger ranches, and meeting with government officials, environmentalists and owners of slaughterhouses, we were persuaded that Brazil has fashioned a reasonable and workable plan -- and one that enjoys broad political support, despite the predictable griping about its specifics. The U.S. clearly has a stake in the success of Brazil's deforestation plan as well as those of other tropical forest countries: It's simply not possible for the world to reach the reductions of greenhouse gas emissions that science tells us are required without tackling the 17 percent deforestation portion.

Importantly -- and fortunately -- reducing deforestation rates also makes good economic sense for us. A landmark climate change bill passed by the House this summer and endorsed by President Obama is now being debated in the Senate. It would compel U.S. manufacturers to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 17 percent – there's that number again – in the next 10 years. "Cap and trade" it's called in the jargon of Washington, after the provision that would allow firms that found it difficult to meet their required emission reduction targets economically to buy credits from others -- or to invest in reductions of tropical deforestation. Those credits are, in a sense, the coin by which we measure the cost to U.S. companies of compliance with carbon reducing mandates. The savings to the U.S economy of including tropical forests have been estimated at $50 billion between now and 2020.

To unlock those cost savings to the U.S economy, a flow of money and technology to nations with tropical forests is essential. They need capital and technology to monitor and measure forest coverage. (Brazil has developed extraordinarily sophisticated equipment, but it and other countries need funds to deploy it.) And they will need funds to help compensate farmers and others who, in the short term, are economically hurt by deforestation rules.

The Commission report estimates that the United States will need to invest $1 billion in public funds before 2012, and that this will need to grow to $5 billion annually by 2020. Additionally, the required private sector investments might well run around $9 billion per year by 2020. While these numbers undoubtedly sound substantial to an American electorate facing a stubborn recession and nearly double-digit unemployment of its own, these are the expenditures that would save the U.S. some $50 billion in costs associated with climate change.

Reducing deforestation requires no new technology and is extraordinarily cost-effective. If we are serious about action on climate change – and it would be wildly irresponsible not to be – robust protection of tropical forests needs to be part of U.S. policy and legislation.

Frank Loy was chief U.S. climate negotiator in the second administration of President Clinton, and a member of the Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests.