Toronto, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto, Buenos Aires... Over the past ten years, negotiators from dozens of countries held high-profile meetings in these cities to discuss a mounting problem facing all life on Earth: global climate change. The evidence pointing to a marked increase in the Earth's surface temperature, directly linked to the increasing concentration of certain "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere, can no longer be ignored.
Few scientists doubt that human industrial activity contributes greatly to the overall warming trend. According to the Worldwatch Institute, human beings have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by 925 billion tons in the past century, bringing concentrations of this gas to their highest levels in 160,000 years. Political and social awareness of the problem is also growing, thanks largely to severe weather-related disasters that displaced tens of millions of people over the last year. Droughts in Mexico, Florida, the Amazon and Indonesia spawned raging fires, while heavy rains (exacerbated by reckless development) led to disastrous flooding in China and Bangladesh.
Now that the evidence is incontrovertible that industrial emissions are contributing to global warming, the solution seems simple: reduce industrial emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and wean ourselves from technologies that produce these substances. Unfortunately, when the solutions are in the hands of politicians and industry representatives, such simple solutions suddenly become maddeningly complex.
Negotiators in Kyoto, Japan last year hammered out a protocol for reducing CO2 emissions, their efforts culminating in a grueling all-night session just before the deadline for ending the convention. The protocol they achieved, however, may or may not lead to actual reductions in CO2 emissions, depending on how the final protocol treats an entirely different issue: forest management.
Plant communities, especially forests, are known as "sinks" in the Earth's so-called "carbon cycle," in contrast to "sources" of CO2 like electrical plants and crowded cities. Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, fixing it in their wood, leaves, stems and soil. This absorption process is known as "biotic uptake" or "carbon sequestration," and happens regardless of human interference. In Kyoto, however, many negotiators and industry representatives saw the opportunity to literally take credit for this natural process.
Under the Kyoto protocol, participating nations must undertake a carbon inventory. This inventory functions somewhat like a budget, balancing CO2 emissions from industrial activities against CO2 absorbed or sequestered by forests and other plans. Nations will use their inventories to determine whether they are meeting stated targets for net CO2 reduction (the United States, for example, has agreed to reduce overall CO2 emissions 7% from 1990 levels during the "commitment period" between 2008 and 2012).
The protocol also allows companies that emit CO2 to receive "credit" against their emissions for undertaking certain forest-related activities that sequester carbon. Although definitions are not yet final, the only forest activities that currently "count" in the Kyoto equation are deforestation, reforestation, and afforestation (planting trees in an area that has either never been forested or has not been forested in a very long time).
Incredibly, the timber industry was able to argue that logging activities, even clearcutting, should not be counted as "deforestation," even though logging and related activities tend to release much of a forest's stored carbon back into the atmosphere. On the other hand, the industry definitely wanted to take credit for the carbon absorbed by trees planted after logging. This approach has two dangerous flaws. First, many timber companies would be getting valuable carbon credits, which they could then sell to CO2-emitting utility companies, for engaging in the same practices they would have employed anyway. Even more dangerous is the potential for a "perverse incentive" to quickly liquidate existing forests in order to replant and thereby receive carbon credits for the young regrowth.
If the timber and utility industries have their way, we may be faced with a dangerously absurd outcome: our native, biodiverse forests logged off and replaced with sickly tree plantations that nonetheless accumulate enough bogus carbon "credits" to offset necessary reductions in actual CO2 emissions. This outcome would be a disaster for forests and the global climate alike. Many climate and forestry activists, however, believe that if this accounting were done honestly - with logging counted as a tremendous emission of carbon and replanting counted as a relatively small "sink"- incentives to conserve existing forests and practice better forestry might result.
Most forest and climate activists are extremely wary of carbon "sinks" being used as credits against CO2 emissions in any form. Such credits, unfortunately, are now part of the Kyoto protocol, and may be difficult to ignore. Indeed, the Clinton Administration and several members of Congress are currently contemplating "Early Action" legislation to institute this kind of carbon accounting system domestically. This effort is fraught with many of the same dangers as the Kyoto protocol itself.
Ultimately, it makes most sense to continue to advocate for the honest and simple solutions. Our forests should be conserved, not only for their biodiversity and their role in watershed protection, but also for their ability to remove and store atmospheric carbon. In addition, the industries (including the forest industry) that emit CO2 into the atmosphere must change their practices.
In the meantime, the Kyoto and Early Action proposals are moving forward. Scientists and other negotiators will be finalizing the definitions of covered forestry activities later this year, and a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regarding carbon accounting methods is due by June of 2000. Because this process, like so may others, is already so tilted toward industry interests, forest advocates worldwide will have to be extremely vigilant to ensure that our remaining ancient forests are not forced to bear the burden of addressing climate change.
(Recommended Reading: WorldWatch Magazine, November/December 1998.)
