The Climate Bonus

4Greener land

Forests, food and farming

Key messages

• Protecting forests saves carbon emissions and has many co-benefits: safeguarding biodiversity; preventing floods and soil erosion; increasing local rainfall and providing livelihoods for local people. However, carbon payment schemes must be designed very carefully to protect the rights of local people and avoid replacement of natural forests with plantations.
• Agriculture is currently a major source of greenhouse emissions, but the sector could become carbon-neutral by increasing the carbon stored in soils and reducing emissions from fertilisers and livestock, using methods such as conservation tillage, adding organic matter to the soil, avoiding over-application of synthetic fertilisers, ...