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November 23, 2009

David Wheeler on Climate, Development, and Forest Monitoring for Action

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Climate Change, Global Development Tags: , , , , ,

David WheelerThis week, my guest on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast is senior fellow David Wheeler, the lead researcher for CGD’s work on climate and development. Last week, David and his team released a new tool called Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA). A major advance in the remote monitoring of forests, FORMA makes available rapid, high-resolution monitoring of ongoing deforestation in tropical areas to anybody with an Internet connection. Developed with financial support from the Foreign Ministry of Denmark, host for the upcoming Copenhagen climate summit, FORMA debuted with data through the end of October for all of Indonesia (read the press release).

While coal-fired power plants and gas-guzzling cars are the poster children for carbon emissions, David says the destruction of forests is just as serious a concern. “There is a lot of carbon locked up in tropical rainforests,” he explains, “and when you burn forests to clear it for other economic activities, you release all of that carbon.” Deforestation contributes about 15-20% of total emissions worldwide, with most of this coming from tropical forests.

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