October 29, 2009
Chris Elliott, Forest Carbon Initiative , World Wildlife Fund
As the Copenhagen talks progress, negotiators must not miss the opportunity to ensure that forests become a vital part of the post-2012 climate change framework.
Efforts to mitigate dangerous climate change revolve around the overarching goal of holding the average increase in global temperatures to well below 2°C. With deforestation accounting for approximately 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is clear that any solution to the climate change problem must include a solution to deforestation. Yet, forests – valued for providing a range of environmental services – have thus far been entirely excluded from the global climate change regime.
Indeed, there are powerful economic and social drivers at the heart of deforestation. If we cannot ensure a way to sufficiently value standing trees over cut ones, we will not incentivize the behaviors and policies that will protect the world’s remaining forests.
REDD – “reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation” – offers a pathway for helping countries reverse deforestation. However, REDD was kept out of the Kyoto agreement — in part due to concerns about feasibility and scope of the policy as well as skepticism about how benefits would be shared with communities. But the years since Kyoto have allowed for national level pilot projects which show clearly that feasibility challenges can be overcome. For example, the science and technology of forest monitoring have advanced to the point that measuring deforestation at the national level is now an achievable goal in most of the developing world.
The Brazilian state of Acre has implemented a deforestation monitoring system that combines remote sensing data and property level monitoring as part of an ambitious REDD policy. With this information it is possible to accurately assess and monitor the forest resources and ensure their protection.
Beyond models of feasibility, the successful implementation of REDD will require coordination at both the national and international levels. Building the necessary infrastructure for operational capacity and financing this will require a phased approach. Early phases, which will be underpinned by public financing, will center on nation-level institution building and the development of technical capacity. Ultimately, global carbon compliance markets can play a significant role in compensating countries for verified emissions reductions achieved during later phases of REDD.
In fact, while a global market for forest carbon is years from being realized, the investment community has already taken notice. Professionals in the SRI, carbon trading and sustainability fields are thinking carefully about how to value forest carbon as an asset; how to project the potential size of the market; what rules and mechanisms can facilitate the most efficient market; and what country-level projects offer best practices.
Investors are also clear that while their market can provide an efficient means of developing a global market, their shared view is that public financing is vital to the start up phase of REDD. Without both the political support from key countries – U.S., EU, China, India and major forested nations – and key national legislative initiatives, REDD will remain a policy in name only.
It is critical that the final text of the post-2012 agreement include firm commitments from developed countries to provide financial and technical support to developing countries, especially for the early phases of REDD. This must be combined with a clear regulatory framework, which will guide the development of national level institutions and give the private sector the certainty it needs to play a constructive role forward in what many expect to be significant and vibrant part of the carbon markets. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity to ensure that standing forests are included in the post 2012 framework.
Chris Elliott is Lead for World Wildlife Fund’s Forest Carbon Initiative.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Millions poised for carbon forestry investment
MATT CAWOOD
29/10/2009 8:23:00 AM
MILLIONS of dollars, and millions of trees, are poised to go into "carbon forestry" the moment Australia’s emissions trading legislation is signed off.
Carbon Conscious, a subsidiary of Western Australian sharefarming phenomenon Australian Agricultural Contracts Ltd (AACL), last week signed a deal with BP to plant up to 10 million oil mallees across Australia’s wheatbelt.
In July, the company signed a carbon sink forest deal with Origin Energy potentially worth up to $169 million.
At the time it was Australia’s largest carbon forests sink arrangment, but it may be eclipsed by last week’s announcement by South Africa’s Standard Bank, which plans to plunge up to $250m into an Australian forestry fund.
Reuters reported that Standard Bank is aiming its forestry at "compliance clients" who don’t want to manage a forest, but who need the carbon offsets a forest can supply.
The fund will cover the planting and management of 50,000ha by Perth-based agribusiness investment firm Rewards Group Ltd, Reuters said.
Forestry is the only way land managers can generate tradeable carbon offsets under the current Kyoto-compliant draft of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
According to ABARE modelling, carbon forestry would be a competitive enterprise across 26m ha of agricultural land if carbon prices climb to around $30/tonne.
At a carbon price of about $20/t - slightly lower than the current trading rate for carbon under the European Union’s ETS - ABARE estimated that carbon forestry would be competitive across about 5.8m ha of agricultural land.
Even if the CPRS legislation is signed off in November, many questions about carbon forestry remain to be answered.
Without proper oversight, many are concerned that an investor rush into trees will take productive farmland out of use and dry out important water catchments.
"It's evident that the planning and approvals process for carbon forestry is mainly at the State and local government level, and that there is no real overview of the issue," said Australian Farm Institute executive director Mick Keogh.
"It may take a while for people to realise that we need to consider this at a catchment or multi-catchment level."
Nor is there any clear direction on ownership and whether a carbon forest, with all its rewards and liabilities, can or should be owned independently of the land.
In its recent discussion paper, The Climate Institute recommended that legislation be reviewed to minimise the "perverse outcomes" of carbon forestry.
It also suggested that carbon forests be managed by Catchment Management Authorities, and that "avoided deforestation" - land clearing - be accorded similar trading possibilities as purpose-planted trees.
29/10/2009 8:23:00 AM
MILLIONS of dollars, and millions of trees, are poised to go into "carbon forestry" the moment Australia’s emissions trading legislation is signed off.
Carbon Conscious, a subsidiary of Western Australian sharefarming phenomenon Australian Agricultural Contracts Ltd (AACL), last week signed a deal with BP to plant up to 10 million oil mallees across Australia’s wheatbelt.
In July, the company signed a carbon sink forest deal with Origin Energy potentially worth up to $169 million.
At the time it was Australia’s largest carbon forests sink arrangment, but it may be eclipsed by last week’s announcement by South Africa’s Standard Bank, which plans to plunge up to $250m into an Australian forestry fund.
Reuters reported that Standard Bank is aiming its forestry at "compliance clients" who don’t want to manage a forest, but who need the carbon offsets a forest can supply.
The fund will cover the planting and management of 50,000ha by Perth-based agribusiness investment firm Rewards Group Ltd, Reuters said.
Forestry is the only way land managers can generate tradeable carbon offsets under the current Kyoto-compliant draft of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
According to ABARE modelling, carbon forestry would be a competitive enterprise across 26m ha of agricultural land if carbon prices climb to around $30/tonne.
At a carbon price of about $20/t - slightly lower than the current trading rate for carbon under the European Union’s ETS - ABARE estimated that carbon forestry would be competitive across about 5.8m ha of agricultural land.
Even if the CPRS legislation is signed off in November, many questions about carbon forestry remain to be answered.
Without proper oversight, many are concerned that an investor rush into trees will take productive farmland out of use and dry out important water catchments.
"It's evident that the planning and approvals process for carbon forestry is mainly at the State and local government level, and that there is no real overview of the issue," said Australian Farm Institute executive director Mick Keogh.
"It may take a while for people to realise that we need to consider this at a catchment or multi-catchment level."
Nor is there any clear direction on ownership and whether a carbon forest, with all its rewards and liabilities, can or should be owned independently of the land.
In its recent discussion paper, The Climate Institute recommended that legislation be reviewed to minimise the "perverse outcomes" of carbon forestry.
It also suggested that carbon forests be managed by Catchment Management Authorities, and that "avoided deforestation" - land clearing - be accorded similar trading possibilities as purpose-planted trees.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Schwarzenegger, Sierra Pacific agree on carbon-offset project
the_sacrament682:/business/story/2222060.html
By Jim Downing jdowning@sacbee.com q{
Published: Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 8B Last Modified: Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009 - 8:08 am
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and timber giant Sierra Pacific Industries on Wednesday evening announced the nation's largest forest carbon-offset project, meant to keep millions of tons of climate-warming gases out of the atmosphere over the next century.
Forestry and some conservation groups said the deal shows the state's new rules on forest offsets, adopted last week by the Air Resources Board, will be attractive to landowners.
But some environmental advocates said it's a sign that the timber industry is poised to capitalize on a provision that allows clear-cutting on land enrolled in carbon-offset programs.
"This is the thing we were worried about," said Michael Endicott, resource sustainability advocate at Sierra Club California.
The deal coincides with a high-profile international climate summit Schwarzenegger is hosting in Los Angeles this week.
On four plots totaling 60,000 acres in Tuolumne, Tehama, Shasta and Siskiyou counties, Sierra Pacific is committing to timber management strategies that should store more carbon compared with "business as usual."
"We can still manage our forests, but we have to meet or exceed the baseline conditions," said Mark Pawlicki, a spokesman for the company.
Over the next five years, Sierra Pacific expects the new management practices will keep 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide stored in the trees and soil that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. That's equivalent to what's generated by burning 170 million gallons of gasoline.
Additional carbon would be stored in subsequent years, with the deal constraining what Sierra Pacific can do with the land for 100 years.
That stored carbon could likely be purchased as an "offset" by industrial polluters or electricity generators needing to reduce emissions under the state's "cap and trade" system. That program is slated to take effect in 2012, though details have yet to be finalized.
Clear-cutting, or removing all the trees in a plot, is allowed on sections of up to 40 acres on private land in California. The offset policy doesn't change that.
Land registered for a forest-offset program could be clear-cut if that represented an improvement over how the land would have been managed otherwise. For instance, a forest in an area that has been cleared every 40 years might instead be allowed to grow for 80 years before logging, a cycle that would likely store more carbon.
Groups like the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity oppose clear-cutting mainly because it can damage wildlife habitat, erode forest soils and pollute waterways. By making carbon-offset revenue available only for lands logged less invasively - by cutting some trees but leaving others, for instance - the state could have discouraged clear-cutting, they argue.
But other groups like the Nature Conservancy support the new rules and say they balance the need to have a program that is attractive to landowners while still maintaining environmental standards.
"There's a fine line with how far you should go with additional (environmental) requirements," said Michelle Passero, the group's senior climate policy adviser, who helped craft the rules approved last week.
By Jim Downing jdowning@sacbee.com q{
Published: Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 8B Last Modified: Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009 - 8:08 am
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and timber giant Sierra Pacific Industries on Wednesday evening announced the nation's largest forest carbon-offset project, meant to keep millions of tons of climate-warming gases out of the atmosphere over the next century.
Forestry and some conservation groups said the deal shows the state's new rules on forest offsets, adopted last week by the Air Resources Board, will be attractive to landowners.
But some environmental advocates said it's a sign that the timber industry is poised to capitalize on a provision that allows clear-cutting on land enrolled in carbon-offset programs.
"This is the thing we were worried about," said Michael Endicott, resource sustainability advocate at Sierra Club California.
The deal coincides with a high-profile international climate summit Schwarzenegger is hosting in Los Angeles this week.
On four plots totaling 60,000 acres in Tuolumne, Tehama, Shasta and Siskiyou counties, Sierra Pacific is committing to timber management strategies that should store more carbon compared with "business as usual."
"We can still manage our forests, but we have to meet or exceed the baseline conditions," said Mark Pawlicki, a spokesman for the company.
Over the next five years, Sierra Pacific expects the new management practices will keep 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide stored in the trees and soil that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. That's equivalent to what's generated by burning 170 million gallons of gasoline.
Additional carbon would be stored in subsequent years, with the deal constraining what Sierra Pacific can do with the land for 100 years.
That stored carbon could likely be purchased as an "offset" by industrial polluters or electricity generators needing to reduce emissions under the state's "cap and trade" system. That program is slated to take effect in 2012, though details have yet to be finalized.
Clear-cutting, or removing all the trees in a plot, is allowed on sections of up to 40 acres on private land in California. The offset policy doesn't change that.
Land registered for a forest-offset program could be clear-cut if that represented an improvement over how the land would have been managed otherwise. For instance, a forest in an area that has been cleared every 40 years might instead be allowed to grow for 80 years before logging, a cycle that would likely store more carbon.
Groups like the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity oppose clear-cutting mainly because it can damage wildlife habitat, erode forest soils and pollute waterways. By making carbon-offset revenue available only for lands logged less invasively - by cutting some trees but leaving others, for instance - the state could have discouraged clear-cutting, they argue.
But other groups like the Nature Conservancy support the new rules and say they balance the need to have a program that is attractive to landowners while still maintaining environmental standards.
"There's a fine line with how far you should go with additional (environmental) requirements," said Michelle Passero, the group's senior climate policy adviser, who helped craft the rules approved last week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)