La priorité accordée aujourd’hui au climat par les Etats, les ONG, les médias, est-elle justifiée ? Sa place dans les politiques environnementales n’est-elle pas excessive ? Soulever cette simple question apparaît, en soi, iconoclaste, dégage un parfum de scandale et s’apparente à une démarche politiquement incorrecte, tant il semble communément admis que « la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique » constitue la mère de toutes les batailles environnementales. Entendons-nous bien : des milliers d’études scientifiques ont mis en évidence un phénomène de changement climatique. Toutefois, cette question a pris, depuis les années 1990, une importance telle qu’elle en vient non seulement à dominer les politiques environnementales, mais aussi à les escamoter voire à leur nuire. Or, si le changement climatique constitue incontestablement un enjeu environnemental majeur, il n’apparaît pas plus important que la pollution de l’air, la pollution de l’eau, l’érosion de la biodiversité voire la dégradation des sols. Guillaume Sainteny le démontre en comparant, par exemple, le nombre de décès prématurés dus à ces phénomènes, leurs coûts économiques ou encore la hiérarchie des constats et recommandations des grandes organisations internationales.

Le changement climatique a déjà des conséquences dramatiques et ses effets n'épargnent aucun pays. Voilà pourquoi le Cabinet Geo-ecostrapol s'invite dans une campagne de vulgarisation qui permettra à tous de comprendre le risque pour l'humanité qui pointe à l'horizon. Ce petit manuel, rédigé sous forme de questions/réponses, permet d'interpeller les décideurs sur trois points essentiels : le rôle de l'Afrique ; la nécessité d'une nouvelle coopération avec l'Afrique ; l'intérêt de rendre moins élitiste le programme de sauvegarde de l'environnement. (Anatole Collinet Makosso).

The inclusion of forests as potential biological sinks in the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1997 has attracted international attention and again has put scientific and political focus on the world's forests, regarding their state and development. The international discus sion induced by the Kyoto Protocol has clearly shown that not only the tropical rain forests are endangered by man's activities, but also that the forest ecosystems of boreal, temperate, mediterranean and subtropical regions have been drastically modified. Deforestation on a large scale, burning, over-exploitation, and the degra dation of the biological diversity are well-known symptoms in forests all over the world. This negative development happens in spite of the already existing knowledge of the benefits of forests on global energy and water regimes, the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and other elements as well as on the biological and cultural diversity. The reasons why man does not take care of forests properly are manifold and complex and there is no easy solution how to change the existing negative trends. One reason that makes it so difficult to assess the impacts of human activity on the future development of forests is the large time scale in which forests react, ranging from decades to centuries.

This volume offers a scientific assessment of the effects of climatic variability and change on forest resources in the United States. Derived from a report that provides technical input to the 2013 U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the book serves as a framework for managing U.S. forest resources in the context of climate change. The authors focus on topics having the greatest potential to alter the structure and function of forest ecosystems, and therefore ecosystem services, by the end of the 21st century. Part I provides an environmental context for assessing the effects of climate change on forest resources, summarizing changes in environmental stressors, followed by state-of-science projections for future climatic conditions relevant to forest ecosystems. Part II offers a wide-ranging assessment of vulnerability of forest ecosystems and ecosystem services to climate change. The authors anticipate that altered disturbance regimes and stressors will have the biggest effects on forest ecosystems, causing long-term changes in forest conditions. Part III outlines responses to climate change, summarizing current status and trends in forest carbon, effects of carbon management, and carbon mitigation strategies. Adaptation strategies and a proposed framework for risk assessment, including case studies, provide a structured approach for projecting and responding to future changes in resource conditions and ecosystem services. Part IV describes how sustainable forest management, which guides activities on most public and private lands in the United States, can provide an overarching structure for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Climate change shaped the political agenda during the last decade with three issues as hot topics: commonly making the headlines: carbon budgets, impact and mitigation of climate change. Given the significant role that forests play in the climate system – as sources, sinks, and through carbon trading – this book update the current scientific evidences on the relationships between climate, forest resources and forest management practices around the world. By including the forest scientists’ expertise from around the world, the book presents and updates a depth analysis of the current knowledge, and a series of case studies focused on the biological and the economic impacts of climate change in forest ecosystems in Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America. The book will form a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students dealing with sustainable forestry, climate change issues and the effects of climate change on natural resource management.