 The United Nations will soon report on proposed carbon trading schemes that would encourage countries to preserve forests rather than cut them down. The report entitled Reduced Emissions from Deforestation (RED) is expected to be presented at a climate change meeting in Bali at year end.
“It has to enter the agenda so that developing nations such as Indonesia can benefit,” said Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar.
“We are ready. We have a grand plan to identify and restore or conserve our forest areas. We have also prepared the financial side of the deal.”
Some of the reasons for the report include the fact that deforestation contributes about 20% of man-made carbon emissions, about two billion tonnes of carbon annually. Trees release carbon dioxide when they rot or burn as they are 50% of carbon. Rainforests soak up carbon dioxide, converting it to oxygen. Clearing land erodes soils which also store carbon.
The Kyoto Protocol, the existing emissions reduction framework focuses on industrial and transport related emissions. The entire transport sector accounts for 14% of global emissions, deforestation definitely emits more CO2. The Stern Review on Climate Change report has also supported this idea, suggesting that avoided deforestation is the cheapest way to reduce emissions. If not stopped, the report claimed that emissions from deforestation could reach 40 billion tonnes of CO2 between 2008 to 2012.
This method therefore has to be included in the succeeding emissions protocol after 2012. The World Bank is making itself the lead agency on avoided deforestation with its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility part of its new private sector led Global Forest Alliance, which will start operating early next year.
Various programs propose compensating government, the private sector and forest owners for preserving forests, and giving economic investments to counter economic drivers of deforestation such as conversion to agriculture. Crucial to the success of such programs are national carbon accounting and verification with remote sensing technology and ground truthing checks.
The Stern Review has estimated that the cost of protecting forests in eight countries responsible for 70% of emissions from deforestation is US$5billion a year.
Some critics are concerned about the effect of these proposed programs on native land rights as more land would go under state control.
Drawing up peat swamp carbon deals without involving local communities risks raising real tensions, said Jutta Kill of FERN, the Forests and the European Union Resource Network.
“Because the focus is narrowly on keeping the carbon stored, the incentive to police is increased,” she said from Britain. “In Uganda, people have been shot at by forest rangers to defend carbon forestry projects.”
Others are looking at peat bog, the so called new black gold. Investors around the world are dreaming of the billions the festering carbon-rich bogs could bring in as the world battles global warming. Peat swamps are formed when trees, roots and leaves rot, are natural carbon stores.
Professor Jack Rieley, a peat expert at the University of Nottingham said, “They are 50% to 60% carbon. Peat stores more carbon than all of the planet’s vegetation combined."
Now the dots have been joined between peatlands and the massive amounts of climate change-related carbon emissions they release when burnt or drained to plant crops.
Peat is a potential gold-mine, said Marcel Silvius.
“This science was not available before,” said Silvius, “The world’s peatlands emit 80% of global carbon dioxide emissions, equal to what all the Annex One (industrialised) countries need to decrease (under the Kyoto Protocol). Tens of billions could be invested to achieve this."
Around US$30.4bil of carbon credits – representing 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 – were bought and sold in 2006 in Europe by companies seeking to trade off business-related carbon emissions for emissions reductions achieved elsewhere.
Within the million hectares of the nearby ex-Mega Rice Project peatlands, Rieley’s scientists have been offered funding from Climate Care for tree planting and fire-fighting. Shell Canada is bank-rolling non-governmental organisation-led peat rehydration and the Dutch government has invested Euros5mil (RM23mil) in dam-building.
Meanwhile, the voluntary market is “developing rapidly”, as investors hope carbon futures will evolve into tradable credits, said Jorund Buen, the director of Point Carbon analysis group.
“Discussions on including avoided deforestation are among the most advanced with regards to post-Kyoto commitments,” he said.
“While the details are still in the works, the ‘big story’ is becoming more clear,” said Meine van Noordwijk, principal scientist for the World Agroforestry Centre.
“If this stays outside of the international discussions, a huge opportunity will be missed... If accepted in principle, this will become part of the 2012 to 2017 international regime,” van Noordwijk said. THE END. |
