DEFORESTATION AND "die-back" caused by climate change could devastate the Amazon rain forest, with the loss of more than two million sq km by 2050, according to British Met Office scientists.
In a report released yesterday, the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research said the loss of forest cover could be five times what the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)projected in its fourth assessment report last year.
Deforestation is already a major cause of carbon dioxide emissions - even larger than the transport sector - and climate change is putting further pressure on forests, with less rain and more drought leading to increased risk from fires.
In previous droughts affecting the Amazon, such as in 2005, fires used for forest clearance became uncontrolled and larger areas were burned through "fire leakage". This risk would increase with global warming, magnifying the impact of deforestation.
Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate advice at the Met Office, said: "In addition to man-made deforestation, climate change may cause the 'die-back' of the Amazonian forest. However, deliberate deforestation in Amazonia is likely to have a bigger impact in the short term."
With no controls on deforestation, the area of forest lost could be five times greater than in the IPCC's fourth assessment scenario, according to the Hadley centre scientists. "Even with effective governance, the loss could be double," they said.
The scientists are assessing the potential effects of ongoing deforestation on climate change and the extent to which reducing deforestation - to preserve the Amazon's value as a "carbon sink" - could help to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations.
By avoiding deforestation, carbon emissions would be reduced by up to 27 gigatonnes (a gigatonne is equal to 1 billion metric tonnes) by 2050, the report notes.
Preserving the forest would also "maintain a carbon sink due to CO2 fertilisation of photosynthesis worth four gigatonnes by 2050".
Deforestation accounts for 18 per cent of global carbon emissions. Indonesia's CO2 emissions are the third highest in the world, after the US and China. Along with other developing countries in the tropics, it is seeking substantial aid for "avoided deforestation".
On Wednesday night, delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference adopted a compromise text on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd), after deleting - at US insistence - a reference to the "rights" of indigenous peoples.
Neither does the text refer to biodiversity, even though half of all species on the planet are found in rain forests. But environmentalists took some comfort from the fact that there is still provision for "full and effective participation" by local communities.
Today, Britain, France and Germany are to announce that they are prepared to provide €100 million in funding for pilot projects to avoid deforestation in countries with substantial rain forests, such as Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo.
Ed Miliband, Britain's energy and climate change secretary, cited the flooding which hit his Doncaster constituency last year as showing "our direct social and economic interest [in providing such aid] as well as our moral interest in saving the planet".
