Forest Carbon Sinks Prior to REDD: A Brief History of Their Role in the Clean Development Mechanism

Already in 1977, in what is often considered the earliest paper on sinks and climate change, Dyson suggested that, provided they are planted on a sufficient scale, trees could offset the global annual increase in emissions in the face of an imminent ecological disaster from increasing CO 2 levels. To make this economically feasible, he suggested plantations be carried out “by labour intensive methods in countries where labour is cheap” (Dyson 1977, 290).