Obama rolls out greenhouse gas emission laws to help protect forests

08/07/2013

The US Environmental Protection Agency was recently given the go-ahead by President Barack Obama to propose and roll out regulations relating to the level of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants across the country.

The President’s Climate Action Plan will obviously have a huge impact on REDD+ and forests across the US, and these effects have been suggested in the latest Ecosystem Marketplace coverage, Eco System Marketplace, the source of news, data, and analytics relating to environmental issues, reported.

The publication reported that CEO of the Verified Carbon Standard, David Antonioli, believes: “The Obama plan is unlikely to have a direct impact on the voluntary carbon markets,” however, it looks set to encourage “countries and companies to start taking concrete action against climate change”.

The Climate Action Plan put forward by Obama suggests that “greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, agriculture, and other land uses constitute approximately one-third of global emissions.” The report also goes on to highlight REDD+ and investigates the country's role in helping to lower carbon emissions by reducing the amount of deforestation that is driven by agriculture.

The plan references USAID’s contribution to lowering more than 140 MtCO2e through the World Bank's Forest Investment Program and Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, which is a partnership with developing countries to set out the framework needed to lower global emissions that come about as a result of land use.

Obama outlines plans to track down new methods to conserve forests across the US, in the face of growing pressure to convert forest land to support new urban growth.

The plan also recognizes the key role that domestic forests play in helping to lower the rate of climate change and in “removing nearly 12 per cent of total US greenhouse gas emissions each year”.