One of the reasons why logging is bad for the climate is that when the trees are felled, they release the carbon that they are storing into the atmosphere, where it will mingle with greenhouse gases from other sources. This effect contributes to global warming and preventing deforestation would help decrease emissions as much as increasing fuel efficiency and reducing automobile usage does. 32 million acres of tropical rainforest were cut down each year between 2000 and 2009, and the pace of deforestation continues to accelerate. Forest clearing will put another 200 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere in the coming decades, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, a leading green group. “Any realistic plan to reduce global warming pollution sufficiently—and in time—to avoid dangerous consequences must rely in part on preserving tropical forests,” states the Environmental Defense Fund. “Conservation costs money, while profits from timber, charcoal, pasture, and cropland drive people to cut down forests,” adds EDF. This also wipes out biodiversity since more than half of the world’s plant and animal species live in tropical rainforests. Brazil is among the countries embracing the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program and has slowed its deforestation by 40% since 2008 and is on track to achieve an 80% reduction by 2020.
