Deforestation and degradation have big climate impacts. Land use change, the majority of which is deforestation, and forest degradation currently account for about 11 percent of total net human-made global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Gross emission levels for forest conversion and degradation are even higher. Curtailing this deforestation and degradation and restoring some of the world’s lost forests is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change.
This paper is a contribution to the FOLU 2019 report, Growing Better: Ten Critical Transitions to Transform Food and Land Use. The paper answers four questions:
Restoration of degraded land can create vast bioenergy crop potential, without constraining food crops or other land use options.