Rainforest Credits

As the curtain rose on the UN climate change talks in Montreal in December, many observers feared the denouement would be rather dreadful. In the meeting’s opening bars, the all-too-familiar refrain
about rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuels met the growing litany of global warming impacts. A rerun of the old stand-offs – between north and south, east and west, the US and the rest of the world – seemed about to unfold. But, on the third day, virtually every delegation sounded positive notes about a topic that no one thought could be considered at all, let alone harmoniously: the need to address GHG emissions from tropical deforestation.