The 21st Century climate challenge

the permanence of mitigation through ‘avoideddeforestation’ is difficult to establish.Serious as the governance challenges are,none of these problems represents a case againstthe use of well-designed market instrumentsto create incentives for conservation, reforestationor the restoration of carbon-absorbinggrasslands. There may be limits to what carbonmarkets can achieve. However, there are alsovast and currently untapped opportunitiesfor mitigation through reduced deforestationand wider land-use changes. Any action thatkeeps a tonne of carbon out of the atmospherehas the same climate impact, no matter whereit occurs. Linking that action to the protectionof ecosystems could create wide-ranginghuman development benefits.Cooperation beyond carbon markets willbe needed to tackle the wider forces drivingdeforestation. The world’s forests provide a wideConclusionrange of global public goods, of which climatechange mitigation is one. By paying for theprotection and upkeep of these goods throughfinancial transfers, developed countries couldcreate strong incentives for conservation.International financial transfers, as advocatedby Brazil, could play a key role in sustainable forestmanagement. Multilateral mechanisms for suchtransfers should be developed as part of a broadbasedstrategy for human development. Withoutsuch arrangements international cooperation isunlikely to slow deforestation. However, successfuloutcomes will not be achieved just throughunconditional financial transfers. Institutionalmechanisms and governance structures foroverseeing shared goals have to extend beyondconservation and emission targets to a far widerset of environmental and human developmentconcerns, including respect for the human rightsof indigenous people.There are vast and currentlyuntapped opportunitiesfor mitigation throughreduced deforestation andwider land-use changes3Avoiding dangerous climate change: strategies for mitigationStringent climate change mitigation will requirefundamental changes in energy policy—and ininternational cooperation. In the case of energypolicy, there is no alternative to putting a priceon carbon through taxation and/or cap-andtrade.Sustainable carbon budgeting requires themanagement of scarcity—in this case the scarcityof the Earth’s capacity to absorb greenhousegases. In the absence of markets that reflect thescarcity implied by the stabilization target of450 ppm CO 2e energy systems will continue tobe governed by the perverse incentive to overusecarbon-intensive energy.Without fundamental market-basedreform the world will not avoid dangerousclimate change. But pricing alone will not beenough. Supportive regulation and internationalcooperation represent the other twolegs of the policy tripod for climate changemitigation. As we have shown in this chapter,there has been progress on all three fronts.However, that progress falls far short of whatis required. Negotiations on the post-2012framework for the Kyoto Protocol providean opportunity to correct this picture.Incorporating an ambitious agenda forfinance and technology transfer to developingcountries is one urgent requirement. Anotheris international cooperation to slow the paceof deforestation.HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2007/2008 161