Carbon Finance News

Rainforest logging. Photo by Rhett Butler. An initiative that aims to slow global warming by paying developing countries to protect and better manage their forests is expected to be an…

Rainforest in the Chocó-Darién Conservation Corridor REDD+ Project area. The Choco-Darien is the first community-owned REDD project in the world to have completed both VCS validation and verification. The project…

Beginning next year, Norway will nearly double the carbon tax on its domestic oil industry to help set up a $1 billion climate change fund for programs in developing nations…

This is a response from Greenpeace to Dr. Daniel Nepstad's critique of Greenpeace's recent report on a carbon finance program being advanced by California and other subnational entities. His op-ed…

This is Dr. Nepstad's response to Greenpeace's Outsourcing Hot Air report. Nepstad is a member of the California REDD Offsets Working Group From 2008 through 2010, deforestation in the states…

California's forest conservation-based carbon offsets in its climate change legislation may not lead to net reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and could exacerbate social conflict in places like southern Mexico,…

Mangroves in Panama Degradation and destruction of the world's seagrasses, tidal marshes, and mangroves may generate up to a billion tons in carbon dioxide emissions annually, reports a new study…

Giant ceiba tree in Panamanian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A dispute over the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) in Panama has pitted the United…

Leaf-tailed gecko in Madagascar. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Madagascar officially designated its largest protected area in a region renowned for its tropical rainforests and rich diversity of wildlife, including…

Mangroves in Honduras Mangroves are under-appreciated assets in the effort to slow climate change, argues a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper which makes a argument for…

Rainforest in Malaysia. Greenpeace has launched a consultation process to establish global standards for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) projects. Today the environmental group released a set of…

Countries with the highest gross forest loss between 2000 and 2005 according to the new study and earlier work by the FAO. Click image to enlarge. Tropical deforestation accounted for…

Rainforest in Indonesia. The concept of paying tropical countries to reduce destruction of their forests is succeeding as an idea but suffering from implementation challenges, argues a new review by…

Amazon rainforest. Five large corporations have launched an effort to boost demand for carbon credits from "high quality" Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) projects in tropical countries. Insurance…

Observations of planet Earth from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on July 11, 2005. Photo by: NASA. Seventeen top scientists and four acclaimed conservation organizations have called for radical…

An Amazon tribe has become the first indigenous group in the world's largest rainforest to win certification of a forest carbon conservation project, potentially setting a precedent for other forest-dependent…

Soy in the Brazilian Amazon The success of governments and big corporations in eliminating environmental degradation from the products we consume will play a critical role in determining the fate…

An apparent carbon deal between an Irish carbon trading company and an indigenous tribe that sparked outrage in Brazil is "invalid" according to the president of FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous affairs…

Shifts in the carbon market, according to Forest Trends. Click image to enlarge Despite slow progress via the U.N. process and other intergovernmental bodies, national governments, municipalities, and the private…

Peatlands destruction in Central Kalimantan. A $100 million peat conservation project launched in the heart of Indonesian Borneo by the Australian government has been dramatically scaled back and is largely…

Global tropical carbon map. Courtesy of ESRI ArcGIS Online Researchers have posted carbon stock data for the world's tropical forests on ArcGIS Online, a web-based mapping platform developed by Esri.…

Sign for Peñaloza. Photo by Rhett A. Butler A pioneering project to reduce deforestation and forest degradation in a former conflict zone in Colombia was recently granted gold certification under…

Male lion in the Okavango Delta. © National Geographic Entertainment. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Now that California's carbon market has arrived, an Australian-based company that specializes in forest carbon…

Tropical countries may face a risk of 'peak timber' as continued logging of rainforests exceeds the capacity of forests to regenerate timber stocks and substantially increases the risk of outright…

Indonesia could have earned $5 billion in revenue and avoided 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions between 2000 and 2005 had a reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+)…

A program proposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation made mixed progress during climate talks in Durban. Significant questions remain about financing and safeguards to protect against…

Jonas Meckling, PhD., writes the first critical analysis demonstrating how various types of not-for-profit, governmental and for-profit coalitions over the past couple of decades have led to the development of…

Rainforest in Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. A new online tool allows anyone to check U.S. government financial pledges made toward reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+)…

Collared puffbird (Bucco capensis) in Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. As the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on…

Amazon rainforest in Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. How to finance a means to reduce deforestation, which contributes emissions equivalent to the entire transport sector combined, has had some…