Global deforestation accounts for nearly 20 per cent of all CO2 emissions. Everyone knows that. We’ve read it over and over again. The figure comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But recent research takes a new look at the data behind the figure and comes up with a figure of around 12 per cent. The research, carried out by Guido van der Werf at the Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, VU University Amsterdam and colleagues, is published in Nature Geoscience this week. Van der Werf explains that “While the IPCC estimates were based on the best available information during the time of writing, several deforestation emission assessments have been revised downward since then. In addition, fossil fuel emissions have increased substantially but deforestation emissions remained relatively constant.”










