Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil, may be under fire within her own country because of her vetoes on spending bills but she is being applauded by many outside Brazil on the countries progress towards environmental change. Rousseff announced at the opening of the United Nations general debate that Brazil has reduced deforestation by 79% in the Amazon between 2010 and 2013. Brazil is often used as an model example of determination and political will by a government to combat climate change.
It is estimated that the loss of the worlds forests contributes to up to 17% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. This is more than the carbon emissions from all modes of transport on the planet.
The current estimate of forest cover is 30% of the planets surface with around one and half acres being destroyed every second. At this rate of deforestation, we would expect to see all of the rain forests on every continent destroyed within 100 years. The rate of deforestation is reducing in Europe, North America and Asia, but this is not necessarily connected to government action but more because the ground within these forest areas is not suitable for agriculture.
UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, said, “Addressing deforestation is high on the twenty-first century policy agenda. The continuing loss of the world’s tropical rainforests represents a significant threat to the security of water, food, energy, health and climate for millions worldwide.”
The Global Canopy Programme (GCP) has created a ‘ratings agency’ called ‘Forest 500’ that ranks the top 500 institutions that have the power to end deforestation by 2020. Using a rigorous methodology, and drawing on over 40,000 data points from public and private sources the GCP has concluded, not surpriningly, that these institutions are not doing enough. Indeed, assessed against dozens of policy indicators, only seven of the Forest 500 scored the maximum number of points, these were: Groupe Danone (France), Kao Corp. (Japan), Nestle S. A. (Switzerland), Procter & Gamble (US) and Reckitt Benckiser Group (UK), Unilever (UK) and banking and financial services giant HSBC (UK).
The Global Canopy Programme is a tropical forest think tank working to demonstrate the scientific, political and business case for safeguarding forests as natural capital that underpins water, food, energy, health and climate security for all.
