Valuing the hidden benefits of forest-based climate change mitigation
Schulte
Forest conservation and restoration continue to be undervalued, underpriced, and underfunded. Financing for forests mostly focuses on climate change mitigation, valuing forests for their carbon storage capacity. With increasing attention on the importance of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and preservation of indigenous and local cultures, however, it has become clear that there are visible and invisible co-benefits of forests that are equally – if not more – significant than carbon alone. As such, we review evidence supporting an expanded valuation of forests, and assess practical examples to overcome this valuation gap. We do this by first offering an economic framework for our analysis, defining a social cost of deforestation (SCD). We then use this lens to assess a suite of opportunities to appropriately value and monetize forest co-benefits. These identified tools may help avoid suboptimal outcomes arising from a carbon-centric approach – supporting policy discussions, and unlocking expanded public and private finance for forests
Event: World Bank Land Conference 2024 - Washington
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