Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • COMMENT

Adopt a carbon tax to protect tropical forests

A levy on fossil fuels can support and restore ecosystems that help to stem climate change.
  1. Edward B. Barbier

    1. Edward B. Barbier is a university distinguished professor in the Department of Economics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Ricardo Lozano

    1. Ricardo Lozano is Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Colombia.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  3. Carlos Manuel Rodríguez

    1. Carlos Manuel Rodríguez is Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  4. Sebastian Troëng

    1. Sebastian Troëng is executive vice-president of Conservation International in Arlington, Virginia, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

A man rides a horse through rainforest in the Talamanca mountains

A tropical forest in the Bribri Indigenous region of Costa Rica. Credit: Ivan Kashinsky/Panos

Deforestation must be stopped in tropical countries to tackle the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. The vast majority of Earth’s species are in the tropics; forests there have taken in much of the carbon added to the atmosphere by human activities. Safeguarding these forests is central to slashing greenhouse-gas emissions and meeting the internationally agreed United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)1.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 578, 213-216 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00324-w

References

  1. Griscom, B. W. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 11645–11650 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Barbier, E. B., Burgess, J. C. & Dean, T. J. Science 360, 486–488 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Special Report on Climate Change and Land (eds Shukla, P. R. et al.) (IPCC, 2019).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Busch, J. & Engelmann, J. Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 015001 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Barlow, J. et al. Nature 559, 517–526 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Climate Policy Initiative. Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2019 (CPI, 2019).

    Google Scholar 

  7. National Fund for Forest Finance (FONAFIFO). 2019 Budget Plan [In Spanish] (FONAFIFO, 2018).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Costa Rican Ministry of Environment and Energy. Report on the State of the Environment 2017 [In Spanish] (2018); available at https://go.nature.com/3b9ynev

    Google Scholar 

  9. Robalino, J., Sandoval, C., Barton, D. N., Chacon, A. & Pfaff, A. PLoS ONE 10, e0124910 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Mittermeier, R. A., Robles-Gil, P. & Mittermeier, C. G. (eds) Megadiversity. Earth’s Biologically Wealthiest Nations (CEMEX/Agrupación Sierra Madre, 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Boden, T. A., Marland, G. & Andres, R. J. Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions (1751–2014) (v. 2017) https://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2017 (US Department of Energy, 2017).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Convention on Biological Diversity. Biodiversity and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Technical Note (CBD, 2019).

    Google Scholar 

  13. International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Monitor: How to Mitigate Climate Change (IMF, 2019).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Supplementary Information

  1. Analysis of a tropical carbon tax

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • FACULTY POSITION IN PATHOLOGY RESEARCH

    Dallas, Texas (US)

    The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center)

  • Postdoc Fellow / Senior Scientist

    The Yakoub and Sulzer labs at Harvard Medical School-Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Columbia University

    Boston, Massachusetts (US)

    Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital

  • Postdoc in Computational Genomics – Machine Learning for Multi-Omics Profiling of Cancer Evolution

    Computational Postdoc - Artificial Intelligence in Oncology and Regulatory Genomics and Cancer Evolution at the DKFZ - limited to 2 years

    Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    German Cancer Research Center in the Helmholtz Association (DKFZ)

  • Computational Postdoc

    The German Cancer Research Center is the largest biomedical research institution in Germany.

    Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    German Cancer Research Center in the Helmholtz Association (DKFZ)

  • PhD / PostDoc Medical bioinformatics (m/f/d)

    The Institute of Medical Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine / University of Freiburg is looking for a PhD/PostDoc Medical bioinformatics (m/w/d)

    Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    University of Freiburg

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links