In fall of 2007 the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its most dire diagnosis of where human-produced greenhouse gas emissions are leading our planet: increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather (heat waves, cyclones, rainfall), severe droughts and flooding, decreased food production, and decreased water supplies throughout the western United States, the Mediterranean, northern Brazil and southern Africa.

A major breakthrough of the conference was its recognition of the important role that protecting standing forests plays in curbing carbon emissions. Because current rates of deforestation contribute 20% of all green-house emissions, decreasing deforestation rates is a powerful and cost-effective mechanism to reducing carbon emissions.

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