The potential perils of forest carbon contracts for developing countries: cases from Africa

Forests play a critical role in the climate cycle as both sinks and sources of carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas (Humphreys 2006, Streck et al. 2008). Forest loss and degradation are estimated to contribute approximately 12 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions globally, making it the second largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, after fossil fuel combustion (van der Werf et al. 2009).