Deforestation
Pavan Sukhdev, who recently led the Green Economy Initiative for the United Nations Environment Programme, talks in the video about the importance of preserving forests to help minimise global warming.
Mature forests capture and trap carbon dioxide that would otherwise enter the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
They also protect land from flooding, which is likely to increase as global warming intensifies, and they help to re-establish local water supplies.
A future for forests
World leaders need to agree ways of protecting forests. Developed countries could help to provide resources for preserving forests, and planting more of them, in less developed areas of the world. This would offset some carbon emissions.
About Pavan Sukhdev
Pavan Sukhdev has long-standing interests and experience in environmental economics. From 2008-2010, while a senior banker at Deutsche Bank, he was seconded to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to lead the agency’s Green Economy Initiative, which includes The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study (TEEB), the Green Economy Report and the Green Jobs report.
Toolbox
Last year nearly 100,000 specimens were loaned to scientific institutions and researchers worldwide.