New Policies Proposed to Keep Climate Change Impacts at Bay

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has a clear message: to keep catastrophic climate change impacts at bay, we need to keep our warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the land sector must play a central role in achieving that. To that end and endorsed by 43 CEOs and organizations representing all dimensions of U.S. forests, the Forest-Climate Working Group (FCWG) released an ambitious federal policy platform, which they say is intended to help Congress leverage forests for climate change action. The platform includes five detailed proposals that guide policymakers on how to help private forest owners and public land managers overcome existing financial and technical obstacles, enabling them to grow powerful climate solutions in America’s forests and forest product sectors while delivering myriad environmental and economic benefits. The proposal advances the FCWG’s four goals for climate change mitigation. They are: 1) Maintain and expand forest cover. 2) Improve forest practices for carbon, adaptation and resilience. 3) Advance markets for forest carbon, forest products and skilled labor. 4) Enhance climate data and applied science.