This paper is based on a World Bank–sponsored effort to develop a global estimate of adaptation costs, considering the implications of global climate change for industrial forestry. It focuses on the anticipated impacts of climate change on forests broadly, on industrial wood production in...

Much of the guidance about potential impacts of reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) speculates how efforts would be implemented and draws lessons from other mechanisms, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES). However, with few REDD activities underway, little...

This paper examines the hypothesis that changes have been brought about in the forest industry that allow it to participate fully in globalization. The forest industry has undergone profound changes in recent years in large part by new technologies. Whereas traditionally it was primarily an...

A major problem being faced by human society is that the global temperature is believed to be rising due to human activity that releases carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, i.e., global warming. The major culprit is thought to be fossil fuel burning, which is releasing increasing amounts of carbon...

An RFF Workshop brought together experts from around the world to assess the feasibility of using biological sinks to sequester carbon as part of a global atmospheric mitigation effort. The chapters of this proceeding are a result of that effort. Although the intent of the workshop was not to...

A concern of many environmentalists is that the use of biomass energy will decimate the forests. Searchinger et al. (2008, 2009) examined this issue related to corn ethanol and suggested that substituting corn ethanol for petroleum would increase carbon emissions associated with the land...

This study develops cumulative carbon “supply curves” for global forests utilizing an dynamic timber supply model for sequestration of forest carbon. Because the period of concern is the next century, and particular time points within that century, the curves are not traditional Marshallian...

This paper explores the impacts of traditional agricultural insurance that offers protection against climatic shocks on small-scale tobacco farmers in Colombia. We analyze the impacts of access to the insurance on household financial outcomes after a period of severe climatic events that caused...

Colombia’s discharge fee system for water effluents is often held up as a model of a well-functioning, economic-incentive pollution control program in a developing country. Yet few objective, up-to-date evaluations of the program have appeared. Based on a variety of primary and secondary...

According to advocates, eco-certification can improve developing country farmers’ environmental and economic performance. However, these notional benefits can be undercut by self-selection: the tendency of relatively wealthy farmers already meeting eco-certification standards to...