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Of course, land use is not the only consideration when assessing the merits of different energy options. Coal and gas come out quite well in terms of their land intensity in the “energy-sprawl” study (coal uses about 10 km2 of land per terawatt-hour of electricity produced each year, and gas about 18), but both must be phased out because of climate change unless their carbon emissions can be captured and buried underground. Hydroelectric reservoirs also take up little space but have impacts on river ecosystems far downstream, as the following chapter will show. At the risk of repeating myself, in terms of the land use planetary boundary alone, my conclusion is that nuclear power is likely to be the most environmentally friendly technology of all, although appropriately sited wind, solar, and other renewables are similarly benign and should be equally encouraged.

REDD OR DEAD?

Traditionally land-use planning is the poor relation of other environmental considerations, left to the mercies of local councils or town boroughs. But with a planetary boundary proposed to limit the human use of the globe’s terrestrial area, we need to start thinking about zoning at a global scale. In some countries there is little wilderness or area of high biodiversity left to protect. In others, however, habitats of worldwide importance remain almost unscathed. Many of these countries are still developing, and for them to forgo the development potential of plowing up grasslands or leveling old-growth forests—which yield undeniable short-term economic benefits in any conventional analysis—is a key opportunity cost that will be borne disproportionately by poor countries. If the rain forests are to be left standing for the benefit of the entire world, therefore, the entire world should pay for them—or at the very least the burden of the opportunity cost should be more fairly shared.

Ecuador illustrated the potential conflict of interest by offering in September 2010 to forgo the opportunity of developing new oil wells in its Amazonian forest. In return for not drilling in its Yasuni National Park, the country’s president has asked for international contributions into a compensation fund set at $3.6 billion.53 Elsewhere, Norway’s government has been a leader in international tropical forest protection: In May 2010 it offered $1 billion to the Indonesian government in return for a moratorium on new forestry concessions to logging and palm-oil companies.54 Norway has pledged another $1 billion to the Amazon Fund, specially created to reduce deforestation in Brazil, while both the U.K. and Norway have jointly committed $200 million to a Congo Basin Forest Fund.55

While bilateral deals such as these are an important first step, clearly a global system is needed to pay for forest protection. Just such a scheme, termed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), is under discussion as part of the international climate negotiations. The idea is that by bringing forests into world carbon markets, enormous funds can be raised through international offsets to fund forest protection as a way of reducing carbon emissions. Getting REDD agreed and implemented is critically important, not only because tropical forest destruction is a major source of carbon emissions (amounting to 1.2 billion tonnes a year at the last count56) but also because of the need to preserve their biodiversity and importance at an Earth-system scale as a biome of planetary importance. Reducing emissions from deforestation therefore actually matters far more than shutting down coal-fired power stations, because tropical forests are treasure troves of biodiversity, while power stations are just concrete and steel.

Unfortunately many environmental lobby groups have been rather skeptical of REDD, and some have outright opposed it. “During the climate talks, we will be demanding that forests are kept out of carbon markets,” vowed a Friends of the Earth (FoE) spokesperson in 2008.57 Looking