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Deforestation in Vietnam |
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'Imagine a fish without water. Can it survive? Now imagine a world without trees. Can men survive?' The Fresh Quotes Just as the French botanist Francis Hallé says, 'Give me a tree and I will save the world', trees are of great importance to sustainable life. However, it is undeniable that deforestation is among the greatest concern of society these days. The essay aims at giving an overview of deforestation in Vietnam and its significance as well as an analysis of the environmental economics approach towards it. Deforestation as the second biggest source of Carbon-Dioxide Emission 18.2%  Source: Herzog, Timothy. World Greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2005. WRI Working Paper. World Resources Institute (http://www.wri.org/publication/navigating-numbers) Nearly one third of the Earth's surface is covered by forests. They produce vital oxygen and provide homes for people and natural habitat for millions of species. Unfortunately, forests around the world are put in great jeopardy, as a result of deforestation. Deforestation comes in many forms, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. According to WWF (World Wild Life Organization, approximately 46 to 58 square miles of forest are disappearing every year in Vietnam. Deforestation has long been recognized as a major environmental problem in Vietnam. According to a 2005 report conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Vietnam has the second highest rate of deforestation of primary forests in the world, second only to Nigeria. In 2013, an analysis of satellite imagery by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) revealed that from 1973 to 2009, Vietnam had already lost 43 percent of its forest cover – the most severe forest destruction in the entire Mekong sub-region. Deforestation, not only destroys Earth's natural CO2 filters 'trees' but also increases CO2 level in the atmosphere (CO2 is released as a result of dead trees dissolving after the deforestation process). It is the second greatest contributor of Carbon-Dioxide in the atmosphere, surpassed only by the production of Electricity and Heat. REDD mechanism REDD (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) is among the policies Vietnam can utilize to curb carbon emissions. Its mechanism has been under negotiation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2005, with the objective of mitigating climate change through reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases through enhanced forest management in developing countries. A country under REDD operates by committing itself to reducing the level of emission from deforestation. Focusing on dealing with deforestation, we can adopt the CR (Compensated Reduction) approach to incorporate REDD into the carbon market. Under CR, participating countries would initially reduce their deforestation rates below a baseline rate and generate credits that would be tradable on the carbon market (Erin C. Myers. 2007).  Why REDD REDD proves to be a highly cost-effective way to deal with carbon emission. It is suggested by Trines, Hohne (2006) that tropical Asia (including Vietnam) is one of the top four forest mitigation measures with 'large' potential to abate CO2. (Erin C. Myers. 2007). 'Curbing deforestation is a highly cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and has the potential to offer significant reductions fairly quickly' (Stern 2007, 537). According to Stern Review and the IPCC Working Group on Climate Change Mitigation (2007), given the size of carbon sources, reducing carbon emission by decreasing deforestation rate offer both the greatest benefits and cost-effectiveness (Erin C. Myers. 2007)  Source: Juha Siikamäki, Jeffrey Ferris, and Clayton Munnings . Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry Offsets. Nov.2012 (www.rff.org) Erin C. Myers. Policies to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) in Tropical Forests. Dec. 2007 (www.rff.org) Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson, H.J. Albers, Charles Meshack, and Razack B. Lokina. Implementing REDD through Community-Based Forest Management. Mar. 2013 (http://www.efdinitiative.org) Learning from the success of Tanzania in applying REDD (Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson, H.J. Albers et al. 2013), Vietnam can slow deforestation through payments for potential forest degraders. On receiving these payments, these people or groups take on the responsibility of reducing deforestation below the baseline rate. This policy motivates each group to find the cheapest way to decrease their individual deforestation abatement cost. Altogether, Vietnam can abate deforestation with a cost-effective way. However, there exist some perverse incentives to this policy. It has been noted that REDD payments in some cases are not used for forest-related activities. Moreover, if REDD payments stop in the future, lack of economic incentives among forest degraders will leave the forest unprotected (Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson, H.J. Albers et al. 2013). Hypothetically, REDD, or more specifically, the utilization of payment to forest-controlled groups proves to be a great policy. From the economic perspective, it is not only cost effective but also provides people with economic incentives to reduce deforestation. However, considering the aforementioned perverse incentives, applying this policy in reality may result in a failure. Cap and trade has 2 noticeable drawbacks. The first one is that because we can now buy or sell permit to pollute, firm can keep using fossil fuels and lacks the incentive to change into green or renewable energy. The price of the permit to pollute may be cheaper than the price to switch into green energy. The second problem is that cap and trade is based on the report of each firm, which mean that firm can fake the emission report to avoid buying the required permit in order to save cost. REDD policy also has its own problem. Firstly it may cause emission leakage, which means that when you increase conservation in one region may cause increase exploit in other region. This could shift the carbon rate from one region to other. One more problem is that there may be a chance of nonadditional crediting. In real practice, it is found that it's very hard to establish baseline of deforestation and ensuring additional crediting. Thus forest which is now threatened by deforestation can receives carbon offset credit. REDD can also reduce the incentives to invest in clean-energy technology. Because REDD already increase the efficiency level of emission and decrease the carbon market price, firm may lack the will to innovate in the future. To sum up, incentive-based policies along with international cooperation are needed to reduce deforestation, ensuring a sustainable future for all. ____________o0o____________ Source: Lohman, Larry. Carry on Polluting. New Scientist. 2006, 2580. Leonard, Annie. The Story of Cap & Trade: Annotated script. The Story of Stuff. [Online] 2009. [Cited: November 15, 2010] http://storyofstuff.org/wp-content/uploads/movies/scripts/Story%20of%20Stuff.pdf Juha Siikamäki, Jeffrey Ferris, and Clayton Munnings. Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry Offsets. RFF. [Cited: November 2012]. [10-12] Erin C. Myers. Policies to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) in Tropical Forest. RFF. [Cited: Dec. 2007]. [62] |
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6 Comments
Thanks for sharing, Anh! Such an impressive way to start your report :) I totally agree with the quote, and believe people should recognize they will not be able to live on Earth if deforestation continues. Have a great day!
Posted 03-01-2017 15:31
I really love the way you started your report with a very meaningful question and a quote. Thank you for sharing
Posted 02-01-2017 04:49
Hi Anh, yeah trees are vital to the world. Thanks for making it clear with all those scientific research and articles. Have fun and happy new year!
Posted 02-01-2017 04:42
I just loved the opening....Thanks Anh for sharing
Posted 30-12-2016 23:08
Good to know about it.
Posted 29-12-2016 13:08
Thanks for detailed article
Posted 29-12-2016 03:34