Climate change, energy and low-carbon development

As the climate crisis resonates around the globe, CIFOR is uncovering the ways that protecting and restoring forests and other ecosystems can help mitigate climate change, and help local people adapt to its effects, while working to help countries meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement.


To avoid catastrophic climate change, society needs to both end its dependence on fossil fuels and pursue low-emission development through forest conservation, agroforestry, sustainable land management, and restoration of ecosystems. Such nature-based solutions could provide 30–37% of the cost-effective emissions mitigation needed by 2030 to meet the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5–2.0°C.

Through its work on REDD+, forest landscape restoration, sustainable management of wetlands, ecosystem-based adaptation, bioenergy, and transformational change, CIFOR’s climate change team works with policy makers, practitioners and local communities to develop the information, analysis and tools needed to design and implement cost-effective and equitable land-based climate policies and practices.

About this team

CIFOR works at the nexus between climate change mitigation and adaptation, bioenergy and low emissions development, working with policy makers, practitioners and local communities to develop the information, analysis and tools needed to design and implement cost-effective and equitable climate policies and practices.

Through this research, CIFOR supports the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy; Goal 13: Climate action; Goal 14: Life below water; and Goal 15: Life on Land.

Objectives

Our research considers everything from REDD+, forest landscape restoration (FLR), sustainable management of wetlands, ecosystem-based adaptation, bioenergy, and transformational change, all of which contribute to our goals of cost-effective and equitable climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Climate change mitigation – examining ways to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and to enhance forest carbon stocks, through initiatives like REDD+ and FLR.

Climate change adaptation – analyzing how people and ecosystems adapt to climate change by looking at migration, gender and land rehabilitation.

Bioenergy – assessing trade-offs, synergies and interactions of ecosystem services under different management scenarios in biofuel plantations and woodfuel systems.

Performance assessment – rigorously evaluating the impacts of climate policies, programs and initiatives on forests and people.

Transformational change – working on the elements, drivers, and conditions that constitute and enable transformational change in the land sector and other intersecting sectors.

Underlying forest and climate science –uncovering issues that link climate, water, soils, forestry and biodiversity issues with the most up-to-date models and knowledge.

Enabling staff

Rosita Go
Team support assistant
 
Christine Wairata
Team support assistant
 

Research sites

Our researchers continue to build and maintain strong partnerships in countries where we do research, such as Bhutan, Brazil, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guyana, Indonesia, Uganda, Kenya, Lao PDR, Mexico, Myanmar, Nepal, Peru, Tanzania, Vietnam … and many others.

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