In regards to your point about opportunity costs, estimates by Vertree put the marginal cost of avoiding deforestation at ~$35 per tonne of CO2. Their analysis was based on the cost of producing and selling deforestation linked commodities in over 50 tropical forest countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Unfortunately, at the moment the value we are placing on forested land is significantly less. And so, either via carbon credits or other financial instrument we are going to have to start paying a much higher price to protect the forest https://carbonrisk.substack.com/p/stopping-deforestation-faces-an-opportunity
I worry that avoiding deforestation is not cost effective. Imagine turning big parts of England into forest in order to capture carbon. It would be really ineffective, right? The cost of real estate would be better spent elsewhere.
For now, these areas of rural Brazil are really cheap. So it looks plausible to just keep them as forest forever. But over time Brazil will get richer, which makes the land more valuable. But the carbon sequestered stays the same. Once Brazil is just as rich as England, why would this strategy make sense in one place but not in another? This only seems to make sense if we keep Brazil poor forever.
Compare to investment in green technology, which becomes a better strategy as the world gets richer.
Deforestation is a pretty confusing part of decarbonization. Various groups are setting aside forests for carbon credits (with the credit may be sold multiple times or secretly harvested later ) being unknown and unenforced. There is deforestation in Europe to accommodate solar and wind farms. There is deforestation in Brazil being done to accommodate agriculture, mostly soybeans (bio diesel?) and beef (cow burps). Then large sections of southeastern American pine forests are specifically being harvested to make wood pellets for UK and EU biomass electricity generation (being shipped by bunker oil burning ships) which is not only encouraged but subsidized by those governments. They say it’s renewable because the trees grow back, but they can grow back in other deforested areas too. Many parts of Europe and North America have reforested as agricultural became more land efficient. And one big deforestation factor is wildfire, which is inevitable, and in California can be increasing because of green energy rules incentivizing PG&E on green energy instead of maintaining its many kilometers of transmission lines running through (uncontrolled by strategic burning) forests.
In regards to your point about opportunity costs, estimates by Vertree put the marginal cost of avoiding deforestation at ~$35 per tonne of CO2. Their analysis was based on the cost of producing and selling deforestation linked commodities in over 50 tropical forest countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Unfortunately, at the moment the value we are placing on forested land is significantly less. And so, either via carbon credits or other financial instrument we are going to have to start paying a much higher price to protect the forest https://carbonrisk.substack.com/p/stopping-deforestation-faces-an-opportunity
I worry that avoiding deforestation is not cost effective. Imagine turning big parts of England into forest in order to capture carbon. It would be really ineffective, right? The cost of real estate would be better spent elsewhere.
For now, these areas of rural Brazil are really cheap. So it looks plausible to just keep them as forest forever. But over time Brazil will get richer, which makes the land more valuable. But the carbon sequestered stays the same. Once Brazil is just as rich as England, why would this strategy make sense in one place but not in another? This only seems to make sense if we keep Brazil poor forever.
Compare to investment in green technology, which becomes a better strategy as the world gets richer.
How has Lula managed this?
Deforestation is a pretty confusing part of decarbonization. Various groups are setting aside forests for carbon credits (with the credit may be sold multiple times or secretly harvested later ) being unknown and unenforced. There is deforestation in Europe to accommodate solar and wind farms. There is deforestation in Brazil being done to accommodate agriculture, mostly soybeans (bio diesel?) and beef (cow burps). Then large sections of southeastern American pine forests are specifically being harvested to make wood pellets for UK and EU biomass electricity generation (being shipped by bunker oil burning ships) which is not only encouraged but subsidized by those governments. They say it’s renewable because the trees grow back, but they can grow back in other deforested areas too. Many parts of Europe and North America have reforested as agricultural became more land efficient. And one big deforestation factor is wildfire, which is inevitable, and in California can be increasing because of green energy rules incentivizing PG&E on green energy instead of maintaining its many kilometers of transmission lines running through (uncontrolled by strategic burning) forests.