'Painting the forest REDD?': prospects for mitigating climate change through reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation

Evidence for anthropogenic warming of the climate system as a consequence of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including CO2, into the earth’s atmosphere is unequivocal. On current trends, the average global temperature could rise by 2–3 ˚C within the next 50 years. This rise is likely to rapidly change the earth’s climate, for example, leading to rising sea levels and a higher frequency of heat waves and heavy precipitation. Business-as-usual or ‘baseline’ climate change implies increasingly severe economic impacts if action is not taken to mitigate the worse effects.