Strategies for reducing global warming

Strategies for reducing global warming include measures to reduce heat trapping emissions in the first place or absorbing emissions after the fact.

Forest preservation
Slowing tropical deforestation is one of the most important ways to avert severe climate change, according to a new study published today in the journal Science. An international team of 11 top forest and climate researchers found that cutting deforestation rates in half by mid-century would amount to 12 percent of the emissions reductions needed to keep concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere at relatively safe levels.

Tropical deforestation currently accounts for about 20 percent of worldwide global warming emissions. Dramatically scaling it back is projected to cost less than $20 per ton of carbon dioxide, making it a cost-effective complement to needed reductions in industrial emissions, according to the IPCC.

Available experts
Union of Concerned Scientists - Non-partisan, science-based non-profit working on, among other issues, reducing climate change.

Climate Program

LISA NURNBERGER, Press Secretary

202-331-5420, lnurnberger@ucsusa.org

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External resources

 * "Tropical Deforestation and Global Warming" - Union of Concerned Scientists fact sheet.