Are CO2 Emissions From Deforestation Exaggerated?
It’s easy to shrug off climate change deniers who use incomplete or inaccurate data in their arguments, but it’s a harder pill to swallow when supposedly reputable organizations dupe us with exaggerated claims. Yet that’s exactly what happened recently with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which purportedly stretched the truth by claiming that deforestation is responsible for 20% of all CO2 produced by people. In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, researchers from VU University in Amsterdam write that the IPCC’s widely quoted statement is actually based on outdated and exaggerated information on tropical deforestation. Instead, the researchers claim that deforestation is actually responsible for approximately 12% of carbon emissions. That still makes deforestation the second highest emitter of CO2 behind fossil fuel combustion, but it’s a significant enough reduction to potentially lower the price of carbon credits sold for forest protection. If the researchers a
