Slowing climate change and helping people and nature adapt to its impacts are among Conservation International’s (CI) highest priorities. We must not only mitigate the accumulation of climate-changing greenhouse gases, but also prepare countries, communities and individuals for erratic weather events, and begin to restore the healthy ecosystems that naturally balance climate change and provide for all life on Earth.

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are altering weather patterns worldwide, causing droughts and water shortages, more intense hurricanes and coastal storms, increased transmission of diseases and declining habitats for plant and animal species.

Human impacts – including the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests and other natural habitats – are largely responsible for these changes, and humanity is only beginning to suffer the effects.
 
Much of the debate about climate change focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy production and fossil fuels, and this is absolutely imperative work.  But there is another element to the climate change equation – the burning and clearing of tropical forests.
 
In fact, deforestation accounts for approximately 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions – more than all the world’s cars, trucks, trains and planes combined. By preserving forests, CI and our partners help to stem global climate change while securing the fresh water, fertile soils, abundant wildlife, and other benefits that healthy forests provide to local people. Tropical forests also are home to more than half of all species on Earth.

YOU CAN HELP: Protect an acre of forest for $15 today.

Burning and clearing of these forests – driven mostly by demand in industrialized nations for timber, palm oil, beef and other commodities – destroys an area the size of England every year.

Scientists warn that failure to halt deforestation means global temperatures will rise to dangerous levels no matter what other steps are taken to combat climate change. The world must have a comprehensive plan.

CI believes we must employ nature in the solution to climate change. By delivering cutting-edge scientific research, economic pragmatism, and an innovative vision to world leaders, policymakers and investors, CI aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by between one and two billion tons per year by conserving forests and other natural habitat. Thus far, CI and our partners have launched groundbreaking initiatives in China, Madagascar, South Africa, Ecuador and the Philippines.

Saving those forests will help hundreds of millions of people – including the world’s poorest, who often suffer the most devastating impacts – adapt to the impact of climate change.

Moving forward, CI will partner with leaders in the private sector to mobilize hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce emissions from deforestation; work with government officials to develop a new policy framework for combating climate change that combines innovations in energy efficiency with financial incentives to preserve forests, coral reefs and other natural habitats; and build the capacity of indigenous communities, NGOs and government agencies to implement this strategy.

We will communicate the urgency of climate change and the effectiveness of forest and biodiversity conservation as a solution to key audiences around the world.

Over the next three years, we will also invest with partners in Brazil, Indonesia, Guyana, Liberia, South Africa and the Eastern Tropical Pacific to show that thriving ecosystems both mitigate climate change and help humans and other species adapt to its impacts.