Frances Seymour Gives Pardee Center Lecture on Deforestation and Climate Change

The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future recently hosted a special lecture by Frances Seymour, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute, exploring the role of tropical forests in efforts to mitigate climate change and advance sustainable development. Seymour’s talk was centered around her recent book, Why Forests? Why Now?: The Science, Economics, and Politics of Tropical Forests and Climate Change, published by the Center for Global Development.

Seymour began by explaining the scale of tropical deforestation as a contributing factor to global climate change, noting that if deforestation were its own country it would rank third behind China and the United States in carbon emissions. Furthermore, she showed how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) treats CO2 emissions from deforestation as a net total, accounting for carbon sequestration as well. Ultimately, forests do not receive anywhere near the level of political attention and finance they deserve from climate change policymakers, and modeling shows that global temperature targets could be achieved cheaper and faster if forests are better integrated into mitigation strategies.

She also explored the responsibility of rich countries to act on deforestation, despite the fact that most tropical forests are located in developing countries. She explained that most deforestation is no longer the result of shifting cultivation practices by small farmers, but rather the wholesale conversion of forests to grow globally traded commodities. In fact, 71 percent of deforested land is for commercial agriculture, 49 percent of that conversion was illegal in the countries involved, and 24 percent of illegal conversion was used for agricultural exports to developed countries.

Finally, Seymour emphasized the urgency of addressing deforestation, showing that 2016 was a landmark year for global forest loss. However, Brazil has demonstrated that meaningful action is feasible and affordable. In the decade since 2004, Brazil experienced a 75-80 percent decrease in deforestation through a combination of law enforcement, the establishment of protected and indigenous areas, and constraint on access to credit in high deforestation areas. In addition, Seymour stressed that remote sensing technology gives policymakers revolutionary tools to see exactly where and how deforestation is happening, and efforts to track global commodity supply chains are improving dramatically. Perhaps most importantly, global norms around deforestation are shifting, as evidenced by increasing recognition of corporate responsibility, illegal logging, indigenous peoples’ rights, and the global consensus on the need to address the problem that was reached in Article 5 of the Paris Agreement.

After the lecture, Pardee Center Associate Director Cynthia Barakatt moderated a discussion with the roughly 45 faculty, students, staff, and community members in attendance.

Watch the video of the full lecture and discussion above. The book is available to purchase or to download for free on CGD website.