After several weeks of being inundated with statements, proposals, goals and costs, the Copenhagen summit is over. Not too many sources are reporting a positive outcome. However it is undeniable that the world’s ecosystems received some 
much-needed focus, and there seems to be more agreement on the importance of forest preservation - albeit without the means to pay for alternatives to land clearing in less developed countries. The following excerpt from the Associated Press website provides a fair summary:
But others said even without the legal framework, the forest program known as REDD – for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation – did benefit from the talks. World leaders at the U.N. talks in Copenhagen did agree to spend $30 billion over the next three years and $100 billion by 2020 to help poor nations – and some of that money could go toward the forest program.
“The failure to conclude a comprehensive agreement on forests is disappointing,” said Michael Levi, senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But if developed countries can deliver the $100 billion per year aimed for in the broader Copenhagen Accord, there is little doubt that a large part of that will go to help preserve forests.”
REDD would be financed either by wealthy nations or by a carbon-trading mechanism – a system in which each country would have an emissions ceiling, allowing those who undershoot it to sell their emissions credits to over-polluters.
Reducing tropical deforestation is one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to reduce emissions, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Read the complete article: http://bit.ly/8kkk1N
