Kyoto's failings Copenhagen's challenge

Climate change is result of inability to see, acknowledge and act on how things in world connect

BY AVRIM LAZAR, SPECIAL TO THE SUNNOVEMBER 26, 2009

In just a few weeks, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to address climate change. Twelve years ago in Kyoto the lurking question was whether there was really a need for global action on climate change. Parties reached a deal there that put us on the right path, but we all knew it was deeply flawed. Our mission now, as we start the Copenhagen process, is to avoid the mistakes made in Kyoto.

This time there is no question about the need to act. And this time, the bar needs to be set higher. Simply achieving a "deal" can no longer be the reference point. Instead the reference point has to be a solution that actually works in mitigating the climate change threat. The test for the next deal has to be its effectiveness.

I joined the Forest Products Association of Canada in 2002 after 25 years in the public service and after leading, for Environment Canada, the development of our government's policy position for Kyoto. That effort, and my subsequent work with Canadian forest industry leaders on achieving the Kyoto targets, (in fact we surpassed them 10 times over), has forced me to spend a lot of time thinking about what we all need to do better in Copenhagen.

The bottom line is simple: You cannot address climate change with the kind of thinking that created it. Climate change is the result of our failure to see, acknowledge, and act on how things in this world are connected to each other: how our actions impact the environment; how the world is not divided into polluters and innocents, and how there is no safe haven from global environmental issues. We like to think in safe, comfortable slices but the world works as a system.

Much of where Kyoto failed was the result of this type of thinking -- focusing on the separate pieces of the puzzle rather than on their interconnectedness.

So looking toward the Copenhagen process, this is what we need:

1. Cumulative global targets and actions that are ambitious enough to seriously impact the climate. Gestures, pilot projects and half measures have been defended in the past as ways to get things going, and they have. But people need to believe that we are doing something effective if they are to buy into the cost of making real change.

2. Far less emphasis on offsetting emissions and far more emphasis on the deep retooling needed to reduce them. We can't hide the greenhouse gases under the bed -- we need to stop emitting them. Of course, offsets help in the short run but they distract us from the real work of retooling our industries and infrastructure.

3. Controls and counting regimes that are based on total carbon footprint. The use of massive amounts of fossil fuel to support the production and use of bio-fuel in the U.S. is one example of what happens when you don't measure total carbon footprint.

Also, the movement of production from one country to another may allow one country to claim a reduction in emissions, but that doesn't help the climate.

4. Better integration of other environmental imperatives into the climate program. Biodiversity, air and water quality are severely impacted by climate change and in need of protection. Sacrificing them for carbon reasons is to repeat the mistakes of the past.

5. A far more robust acknowledgment that we need to live within nature's cycles rather than trying to reverse-engineer our way out of nature's imperatives.

6. A willingness to deny access to global markets to those who choose to ignore their environmental responsibilities. For example, banning products that caused deforestation or that came from illegally logged forests.

In Canada, the forestry sector realized years ago that it must transform itself to meet the challenges of climate change.

During the past decade, our forest industry -- the world's largest exporter of forest products -- has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions from its mills by 60 per cent, removing eight million tonnes from the atmosphere.

By retooling our plants and mills and switching from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, we have learned to live within our natural forests, to do business while preserving biodiversity.

Over the past few years, our industry has seen at close range the dangers of climate change.

Warmer winters have allowed pine beetles normally killed by the cold to multiply. The destruction they have left in Canadian forests has resulted in 25,000 families in this country losing their livelihood.

This is just one problem, in one industry, in one nation. And it is just one reason why we in the forest industry have realized that climate change is not an abstract threat for the future, but today's reality.

We have made much progress but the challenges remain daunting. That is why we are going further in addressing our total carbon footprint by committing to becoming carbon neutral from cradle (the forest), to grave (recycling), without purchasing carbon offsets.

With 300 communities across this country relying on the forest industry and one in 25 Canadians working directly and indirectly in the forestry sector, we realize action on climate change is crucial.

Kyoto accommodated the skeptics, we need Copenhagen to empower the believers.

- - -

Avrim Lazar is the President and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Importance of methane and nitrous oxide for Europe’s terrestrial greenhouse-gas balance

Away from Climategate and back to science, here’s something interesting fingering land use as an issue. This is from the Max Planck Society.

A new calculation of Europe’s greenhouse gas balance shows that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide tip the balance and eliminate Europe’s terrestrial sink of greenhouse-gases.

Fig.1: In order to compute whether European landscapes store or release greenhouse gases, climatologists have for the first time also considered methane and nitrogen oxide emissions from livestock farming and intensive agriculture. The bottom line is that forests, grasslands and agriculture fields, particularly in central Europe, freely release greenhouse gas (in carbon dioxide equivalents / red colouring in diagram). In this way they balance out the effect which Russian forests have as a source of carbon dioxide storage (blue colouring), almost completely. Click for larger image.

Of all global carbon dioxide emissions, less than half accumulate in the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming. The remainder is hidden away in oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, grasslands and peat-lands. Stimulating this “free service” of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems is considered one of the main, immediately available ways of reducing climate change. However, new greenhouse gas bookkeeping has revealed that for the European continent this service isn’t free after all. These findings are presented in the most recent edition of Nature Geoscience (Advanced Online Publication, November 22, 2009).

Researchers from 17 European countries cooperating in the EU-Integrated Project CarboEurope, led by Detlef Schulze, of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany have compiled the first comprehensive greenhouse gas balance of Europe. They made two independent estimates: one based on what the atmosphere sees and one based on what terrestrial ecosystems see.

The new bookkeeping effort confirmed the existence of a strong carbon sink of -305 Million tonnes of carbon per year in European forests and grasslands. A sink of this magnitude could offset 19% of the emission from fossil fuel burning. However, agricultural land and drained peat-land are emitting CO₂, which cancels part of this sink. The resulting net CO₂ sink of the European continent is 274 Million tonnes of carbon per year – only 15% of the emissions from fossil fuel burning. But this balance is still incomplete, because all European ecosystems are managed and as a by-product of land management other powerful greenhouse gases are released – for example nitrous oxide from fertilizers applied to grassland and crops, and methane from ruminants and from peat-lands. These previously neglected emissions of greenhouse gases from land-use cancel out almost the entire carbon sink, leaving the landscape offsetting only some 2% of the CO₂ emissions from households, transport and industry.

Compared to Europe as a whole, the situation is even worse for the 25 states of the European Union. Here, although forests and grasslands can compensate for 13% of the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuel burning, emission of powerful greenhouse gases from agricultural emissions and peat mining reduces the effectiveness of the land surface sink to 111 Million tonnes of carbon per year, which is only 11% of the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuels. However, since the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide are relatively higher in the European Union the land surface emerges as a greenhouse gas source of 34 Million tonnes of carbon per year. This effectively increases the emissions from fossil fuel burning by another 3%.

Prof Schulze said “These findings show that if the European landscape is to contribute to mitigating global warming, we need a new, different emphasis on land management. Methane and nitrous oxide are such powerful greenhouse gases; we must manage the landscape to decrease their emissions.”

Related links:

[1] Supplementary figures

Original work:

E. D. Schulze, S. Luyssaert, P. Ciais, A. Freibauer, I. A. Janssens et al., 2009
Importance of methane and nitrous oxide for Europe’s terrestrial greenhouse-gas balance
Nature Geoscience, November 22, 2009, DOI 10.1038/ngeo686 PDF (225 KB)

Mohawk's Environmental Calculator Now Computes Carbon Neutrality

Posted:

Mar 19, 2009 – 01:45 PM EST

Cohoes, NY - March 19, 2009 - The 2004 release of the Mohawk Fine Papers Inc. interactive Environmental Calculator was an instant hit with small businesses and major corporations around the globe. With a few taps on their keyboard, they were able to see how many trees would be preserved and how many pounds of greenhouse gases would be prevented by using papers with environmental attributes.

Upgrades to Mohawk's Environmental Calculator will allow customers to see the savings realized by offsetting direct thermal manufacturing emissions with Verified Emission Reduction credits (VERs). Combining the VER benefits with windpower savings, Mohawk becomes the first U.S. paper mill to offer carbon neutral calculations through its Environmental Calculator.

"Our revised on-line Environmental Calculator computes the additional benefits of supporting qualified greenhouse gas mitigation projects through the purchase of VERs. In 2007, Mohawk joined the U.S. EPA's Climate Leaders Program and, as a condition of membership, Mohawk counted the greenhouse gas emissions for which it has direct responsibility. That same year, Mohawk began to purchase VERs as offsets to those emissions," said Michelle Carpenter, Manager, Corporate Environmental Initiatives, Mohawk Fine Papers Inc.

This tool is easy to use, and can be downloaded directly to your desktop for instant access. Log on to www.mohawkpaper.com and click on "Environmental Calculator," input some basic paper information into the form and click "Calculate Savings."

Many companies today are calculating each project's environmental savings to promote their own awareness of, and efforts toward, sustainable practice. For example, if a company prints an annual report and uses 10,000 lbs. of paper, by using Beckett Cambric 100% PC White instead of a virgin sheet, that company would create an environmental savings equal to:

96 trees preserved for the future
277 lbs. water-borne waste not created
40,780 gallons wastewater flow saved
4,512 lbs. solid waste not generated
8,884 lbs. of greenhouse gases prevented
68,000,000 BTUs energy not consumed

Because this Mohawk paper selection is manufactured with wind-generated energy and also with carbon offsets, there is an additional environmental savings of:

11,000 lbs. greenhouse gas emissions not generated,which is equivalent to 12 barrels of fuel oil unused, or not driving 10,886 miles in an average car, or planting 748 trees

Use Mohawk's Environmental Calculator to see the environmental impact your project can make.

"Even in these tough times Mohawk remains committed to sustainability in the broadest sense of the word. Our efforts are comprehensive and woven into the fabric of our corporate culture and business practices. Energy and materials conservation initiatives go hand in hand with a broader effort to reduce our carbon intensity by helping to fund climate beneficial projects," said George Milner, Senior Vice President, Energy, Environmental and Government Affairs for Mohawk Fine Papers.

For more information about all of our programs, visit www.mohawkpaper.com or call 1-800 the mill.

About Mohawk
Recognized for its technical innovation and environmental focus, Mohawk Fine Papers Inc. is the largest manufacturer of premium printing, writing, and digital paper in North America. Signature grades include Strathmore(R), Beckett(R), Mohawk Superfine(TM), Via(R), BriteHue, Carnival, Synergy, Solutions, Nekoosa Linen, Mohawk Color Copy(R), and proprietary Inxwell(R) products, Navajo(R), and Options(R). Mohawk is also the exclusive marketer of Kromekote and Knightkote, premium coated brands manufactured by Smart Papers.

Mohawk engineers its papers to provide optimal performance for sheetfed, web, and digital printing. Uses for Mohawk papers include corporate reports, corporate identity systems, brochures, packaging, invitations and announcements. Mohawk Digital Papers are also used in on-demand photo books, personalized direct mail, and custom packaging. Mohawk offers reams and envelopes through its ecommerce site at Strathmore.com.

A certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise and leader in environmental stewardship, Mohawk is the first U.S. paper mill to offset 100% of its electricity with windpower renewable energy credits and the first U.S. premium paper mill to shift toward carbon neutral production. Also offered are recycled papers certified by Green Seal and papers certified to the Forest Stewardship Council's (FSC) standards by SmartWood, a program of the Rainforest Alliance. FSC certification ensures responsible use of forest resources.

(C)1996 Forest Stewardship Council A.C. SW-COC-000668

For more information, please contact:

Jane Monast Mohawk Fine Papers

Phone: 518-233-6732

Website: www.mohawkpaper.com

Pam Williams Williams and House

Phone: 860-675-4140

B.C. better start finding carbon credits at home BY MIRO CERNETIG, VANCOUVER SUN COLUMNISTNOVEMBER 26, 2009 9:21 AM

For the last year I’ve been on an admittedly geeky quest during my vacations. I have criss-crossed the planet, hunting down the million-dollar deals involving what many think will be a commodity as big, or bigger, than either oil or gold.

I’ve been carbon-credit hunting.

My exploration through the carbon world, which has turned into an hour-long film Carbon Hunters, took me from Mumbai to Washington, DC, from Manila to London, and a few places in between. It slowly dawned on me that this isn’t a crazy fad — it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry.

One of the revelatory moments happened right here in B.C., in Clayoquot Sound.

I was on the tiny island that is the home of Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. As the grey sky emptied on the rain forest, Atleo told me something few people know.

A few years ago an oil company — energy companies have been some of the earliest players in the carbon credit game — approached him. They wanted the Ahousat First Nation to set aside a vast track of forestry.

The idea was this: The oil company was producing a huge carbon footprint in Alberta’s tarsands. The company wanted to be able to say it was preserving a rainforest, therefore sequestering carbon in trees, thus offsetting its carbon footprint and doing its bit to combat global warming.

Atleo refused the deal. But it was a first hint of the big business that carbon trading would become.

On Wednesday, we got an even bigger sign that carbon trading is emerging as one of the major businesses of the 21st Century. California’s Air Resources Board, which regards carbon and other greenhouse gases as a pollutant causing global warming, unveiled a carbon cap-and-trade program. It’s the first in the United States.

It will set carbon dioxide emission caps on more than 600 refineries, utilities and other greenhouse gas emitters. Polluters who don’t reduce their greenhouse gases will have to buy carbon credits, a trade that California expects to be worth between $2 billion to $4 billion a year in the state alone.

This has major implications for Canada and British Columbia. For one thing, B.C. is part of the Western Climate Initiative with California (as well as three other provinces and four western states). California’s cap-and-trade program will be integrated into that agency, which means that B.C. and other provinces will also be drawn into the California carbon credit trade, both as sellers and buyers of carbon credits.

But that’s just the start.

California’s cap-and-trade plan is regarded as the blue-print for a national cap-and-trade plan that U.S. President Barack Obama hopes to get through Congress next year. If that happens — and the odds are high it will — that will mean carbon trading will become a crucial part of all future U.S.-Canada trade relations.

For B.C. and Canada’s energy-intensive resource sectors, that poses the likelihood they will have to start buying credits, to offset their carbon footprints, to enter the U.S. market. Under the draft regulations, for example, California will regulate the carbon footprints of electricity importers.

What this means is B.C. and Canadian negotiators better start moving fast to define Canadian-sourced carbon credits.

Will Canada’s carbon credits include trees grown to sequester carbon? Can green power from run-of-river power projects create carbon credits? Or the carbon saved in trees by protecting Canada’s boreal forest?

If Canada doesn’t identify a supply of home-grown carbon credits, the U.S. will force it to buy those credits from others. That will mean billions of dollars leaving the country. In short, we’re likely to be soon facing a carbon tariff.

For Canadians, this is a bigger challenge than the softwood lumber wars. It’s as complex as the free trade deal.Probably even bigger, actually.

Richard Sandor, who runs the Chicago Climate Exchange and is seen as the “father of carbon trading,” predicts the global carbon credit market will soon be in the trillions of dollars annually. Bigger than gold or oil.

If he’s right, let’s hope the Canadian and provincial governments have their crack negotiators on this file in Washington and the United Nations, where cap-and-trade will be defined. If not, what many predict will be the Carbon Century could be very, very expensive for Canadians and their economy.

mcernetig@vancouversun.com

Miro Cernetig’s film, Carbon Hunters,

airs tonight at 8 p.m. on CBC

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Forest Carbon Core to Climate Change Deal

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.

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.

Schwarzenegger, Sierra Pacific agree on carbon-offset project

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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.