AP Photo

Industry: Light bulb war a dim idea

Big Business usually loves it when the GOP goes to war over federal rules.

But not when it comes to light bulbs.

Brazil’s forest policy could undermine its climate goals

Brazil, caretaker of the world’s largest rain forest, is about to enact broad new regulations that opponents say could loosen restrictions on Amazon deforestation and increase the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The move comes after two years of often roiling debates and dozens of hearings across the country over how to update a 1965 law that was designed to control slash-and-burn agriculture. Backers say the proposed Forest Code bill, which is expected to be signed into law early next year, would protect the Amazon while easing the regulatory burden on small farmers.

Brazil, a leader on climate change and host of next June’s U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is charting a climate strategy shaped by domestic politics and economic concerns that sometimes appears at odds with its international environmental rhetoric. Such domestic pressures — clear also in increasingly influential developing countries such as China and India — have created uncertainty over how the world will curb its carbon output by the end of the decade, even as negotiators gear up to forge a new global warming pact by 2015.

“It sends a mixed message because Brazil has positioned itself as a country that’s committed itself to saving the forest cover to the benefit of the world,” said Christian Poirier, Brazil program director for Amazon Watch. “The new forest code flouts all that.”

Coalmine a ‘threat to global warming target’

The development of coal ”mega-mines” in central Queensland such as the massive China First project will destroy the world’s chance of keeping global warming to 2 degrees, Greenpeace says.

In its submission tomorrow to the federal government on the environmental impact of mining magnate Clive Palmer’s $7.5 billion China First mine, the environmental group will say that this and other big projects in Queensland’s Galilee Basin will lock in huge coal exploitation for decades to come.

”If this goes ahead, it will destroy our chances of keeping global warming to 2 degrees,” Greenpeace campaigner John Hepburn said. 

The International Energy Agency recently reported that the world needed to make ”urgent and radical policy changes” if it was to stick to the internationally agreed goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees by the end of the century. The agency drew up a ”carbon budget” that would allow the world to meet that target.

A Solar Trade War Could Put Us All in the Dark

After decades of global competition and collaboration, many solar markets around the world have reached grid parity—the point at which generating solar electricity, without subsidies, costs less than the electricity purchased from the grid. In other words, solar technology is ready to be a major contributor to solving our planet’s energy and environmental crisis.

However, trade protectionism threatens to inhibit the solar industry at the very time when it is breaking through to a new level of global interdependence, collaboration, and maturity.

On October 18, the U.S. government was asked to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese solar cells and modules, based on the argument that China-based producers have been heavily subsidized and are selling solar products at unfairly low prices. Perhaps not surprisingly, some Chinese companies have now asked the Chinese government to impose tariffs on imports of American solar products, arguing that U.S.-based producers have been heavily subsidized, too. And just like that, the production of affordable and competitive solar products has become a political liability in the world’s two largest producers and consumers of energy.

India’s Rajasthan Opens Bidding for 200 Megawatts of Solar Farms

India’s Rajasthan state started accepting bids from developers to set up 200 megawatts of solar power projects in an area that has the country’s second-most solar radiant exposure.

The state plans to auction contracts for 100 megawatts of photovoltaic plants and 100 megawatts of solar thermal plants, Naresh Pal Gangwar, chairman of the state-run Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corp. said today by telephone.

Reliance Power Ltd. (RPWR), Shriram EPC Ltd. (SEPC) and SunEdison, the solar development unit of MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (WFR), are among companies that are developing projects in Rajasthan, believed to have some of India’s most promising resources to develop energy from sunlight with its sprawling desert terrain.

Solar thermal technology uses sunlight to heat liquids that produce steam for generators, while photovoltaic plants use panels to turn sunlight directly into power.

Romney Jabs Newt Over 2008 Global Warming Ad

Mitt Romney took a jab at GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich today during a town hall meeting for an ad the former speaker filmed with Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi aimed at spreading awareness on climate change.

Asked about his views on global warming by an audience member, Romney responded without missing a beat, “First of all, I’m not planning on cutting an ad with Nancy Pelosi.”

The crowd erupted in applause.

“In all fairness, Speaker Gingrich also said that was the biggest mistake of his life,” Romney quickly added, laughing.

Romney was referring to an ad, titled “We Can Solve It,” that was released in 2008 and featured Gingrich and then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sitting on a couch together urging people to address global warming.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon joined famed British anthropologist Jane Goodall at the COP 17 climate conference today to support a mechanism called REDD+ (also known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

They called it a “win-win” for reducing carbon emissions and preserving biodiversity.

The REDD+ mechanism, which is still being hashed out by negotiators this week, allows emitters to offset a portion of their emissions through forest preservation projects in developing countries. It’s one of the main agenda items in Durban actually getting traction.

Also joining the event to support REDD+ were Bill and Hillary Clinton, who spoke to a diverse crowd of diplomats, journalists and NGOs via separate recorded video messages.

“Clearing and burning of tropical rainforests is responsible for approximately 15% of global carbon emissions, but conserving forests is one of the most affordable ways to reduce pollution,” said Clinton in a brief address to a large crowd. “Help us fight one of the greatest threats in history.”

President Obama even made a recorded cameo at the event. He praised the work of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai, who established a tree-planting movement in the 1980’s in order to empower local communities and fight back against exploitation of Africa’s forests.

“Here in Durban, we can carry on her work, to … grow our economies in a way that’s sustainable and that addresses climate change. In this you have the partnership of the United States. Delegates must remember her call in which she said: ‘We must not tire. We must not give up.’”

An ironic statement, considering the criticisms against Obama for exactly that: limiting his talk about climate change in the U.S. in the face of a well-funded smear campaign against the science.

While delegates at this year’s climate conference are concerned about the lack of progress on internationally binding commitments, they haven’t given up yet. Yesterday saw some movement on the much-anticipated $100 billion Green Fund, with the U.S. indicating it would support the text. And the last week of negotiations have brought countries closer to agreeing to the framework for the REDD+ mechanism.

Like the Green Fund, REDD+ has broad support from international negotiators. But the details on how to fund it, how to administer it, and how to accurately monitor emissions are still being worked on.

A technical working group issued a draft decision this week that identifies how to track and report those emissions reductions. If the text is approved, it could put the international community closer to a framework on deforestation emissions – a problem that accounts for more carbon released into the atmosphere than the entire global automobile fleet.

The REDD+ program being debated is an extension of the Clean Development Mechanism established under the Kyoto Protocol, which allowed developed countries invest in forest conservation projects in order to reduce emissions. Jonathan Pershing, the deputy climate negotiator for the U.S., today praised the latest iteration of the program. But he also called it “nascent.”

Pershing said that deforestation offset programs are still evolving from something that simply focuses on “saving a tree” to something that “will protect the ecosystem.” That means addressing food security and creating economic opportunities that make it less attractive to slash and burn valuable forests.

“We agree with others that it’s an integrated problem,” said Pershing “You can’t isolate it without looking at agriculture and food requirements. You can’t just pick it out and say I’m going to save the tree and not the ecosystem. The history of climate protection has been that I’m going to protect the tree.”

While most of the world leaders at COP 17 are praising the development of this deforestation-prevention program, REDD is not without its harsh critics. Some environmental and indigenous groups have issued statements calling the program a hostile take-over of local land rights. Many groups are concerned that it would make forest lands a commodity to be exploited by outside interests, assuming it is eventually tied to a global carbon-trading mechanism.

But the technical group working here in Durban attempted to alleviate those concerns by establishing standards for reporting information on projects. These standards will make it easier to see details of transactions and determine if local land rights are being protected. The working group is also developing verification and reporting methods for transactions. But those won’t likely be completed here in Durban.

Although movement on REDD+ is slow, onlookers expect to come out of Durban with more clarity on how the mechanism will be formed. Meanwhile, world leaders continue their call for faster action:

“We need to have a COP decision on REDD,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. “We need to support a climate friendly forest sector. And we need innovative policy and actions that can halt deforestation.”

The climate-conscious home builder may ask him or herself: “What’s the most C02-friendly method of building a home?” We wanted to find that out as well, so we compared three different materials — steel, timber and concrete.

Surprisingly, it’s not timber. The answer is steel, which has a CO2 Index of 1 compared to 1.52 for concrete and a 4.44 for a timber-framed home.

Here’s how we found the answer by using a single-story, ranch-style house in Texas with three bedrooms, two baths and a garage for a model. The living space was approximately 116 square meters, plus an attached 47 square meter garage and storage area.

The structural systems for all three construction materials were designed by professional engineers.  Contractors then developed cut lists and block totals from engineered drawings.

For the steel version of the house, two different approaches were taken: standard profiles, using mostly 0.84 mm material for field framing and high tensile strength (60 ksi) steel combined with more advanced geometries. We then obtained an average total steel weight figure from the two designs. Wood sheathing for the roof was not included, since these elements would be identical for all three houses.

For the wood house, two general contractors (unknown to each other) were asked to develop lumber takeoffs based on the US prescriptive code, and the totals were averaged.  We added a standard 15% for lumber yard and site cull. By using a 25% figure for mill waste, in addition to cull, we arrived at a CO2 emissions estimate with a standard deviation of 2.5 tons of CO2 emissions for the sample house.

The block house was engineered using empirical codes for the same location.  We then submitted the drawings to a masonry contractor, who developed a block materials list, plus a wastage allowance.  Only one block takeoff was collected, assuming minimal variance in builders’ block totals.  A 5% breakage figure was added. The roof was framed in steel, so that total structural emissions could be calculated.

Units of measurement were kilograms of steel, cubic meters for wood, and kilograms for CMU blocks plus steel trusses.

CO2 emissions analysis methodology
In the US, industry CO2 emissions are calculated by the respective trade associations, in compliance with EPA reporting requirements.  The American steel industry submits emissions reports that are non-controversial. Concrete block manufacturing is more variable, but rough industry emissions averages were obtained from the trade associations. Timber emissions resulting from logging operations are more difficult to calculate. Unlike other countries, the US timber industry reports only net sequestration, so there is no easily obtainable separate category for logging produced emissions. Our approaches for the different material industries follow.

Cold-formed steel emissions estimates
Data from the three most recent available years was collected: 2006, 2007, and 2008. Tonnage was averaged for these years, yielding a figure of 93.8 million metric tons (Mmt).

Average annual CO2 emissions for the US steel industry for 2006-2008 were 111.7 Mmt per year¹. This overall industry figure, with a CO2 emissions intensity of 1.19, was used to calculate emissions for the steel elements in the Texas house.  While emissions vary among different mills, we used the average US industry figure.

CMU industry emissions estimates
2006 concrete emissions, for both process and energy use, were reported at 70.21 Mmt CO2 in EPA reports to the Energy Information Agency². The market share of CMU is not available, so we relied on recommended weight formulas in order to estimate annual emissions. The weight of CMU block for the sample house was estimated at 76 metric tons of concrete and mortar.  We derived an emissions estimate by calculating 8% emissions by weight of CMU. Steel trusses for the CMU house were added to the total emissions burden of the CMU house.

Timber industry emissions estimates
The US timber industry does not directly report logging emissions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Values were arrived at through several methods:  assessing comparable softwood timber producers’ reported emissions, in this case Canada and Sweden³, evaluating rough submittals in EPA annexes⁴ and relying on the professional literature.  One such study by Heath and Birdsey, US Forest Service carbon scientists, estimated the long term sequestration value of a no logging scenario in the US would save 1.203 billion tons of CO2 emissions annually⁵.

The below illustrates forest carbon flux after a clear-cut harvest. Note that the site vegetation does not begin to achieve net sequestration for many years, since wood products, slash, and litter are decaying faster than growth. It takes 200 years or more before the site sequesters the amount of carbon held previously.

CO2 intensity for logging is roughly estimated at 0.96 Mmt of CO2 per cubic meter of industrial roundwood production, based on typical country forestry emissions reports.  The US Department of Agriculture⁶ reported 2005 US wood products consumption at 599,523 cubic meters, a figure which includes consumption of imported wood products.  US CO2 emissions from consuming wood products are estimated at 575.5 Mmt annually.  This figure does not include site emissions from soil, and follows Kyoto protocols in not allowing for harvested wood products (HWP) sequestration. The reason for not allowing HWP sequestration is that the wood is replacing wood products that have decayed. HWP carbon sequestration is only 15% of site emissions according to accepted forest carbon science calculations.

Emissions estimate for sample house
Slightly different methods were used to arrive at each structural material’s CO2 emissions score reported in Table 1.  Since plywood roof sheathing is assumed to be identical for each house, this material was not included in the emissions calculations. Steel and masonry calculations are roughly accurate, but there are minor uncertainties in the timber calculation, which are reflected in the standard deviation.

Long term trends will favor steel, as energy intensity is declining, and less so timber, since climate disruption is increasing tree mortality worldwide.  Degraded forest habitat from industrial logging is a significant factor in this mortality, which has doubled in the US since 1970, but this is not factored into the above emissions calculations.

The American housing industry has an historic opportunity to make substantial contributions toward reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.  In a rational world, the outcome would be to switch to inert materials for structural components. Homes would last longer, resist wind, fire, and earthquakes better, and enable the return of robust American forests.

– Mike Roddy and Dr. Reynaud Serrette.  Roddy has developed environmental impact analyses for Nucor Steel and the American Iron and Steel Institute.  Prof. Serrette has been involved in light frame construction in North America for the past 23 years and he is currently involved in the development of sustainable (materially and economically) light building systems for the Caribbean basin.

JR:  I do think that, as with all life-cycle analyses, different assumptions can lead to different conclusions.  If one could be confident of sustainably harvesting wood, that would change the equation, as one recent study found.  Of course, one might ask, shouldn’t sustainably harvested wood be compared to recycled steel.  Systems impacts are also complex.  So I’m very open to people coming to different conclusions depending on the choices they make.  I generally trust the choices that the US Green Building Council’s LEED certification makes and recommend you do so also when constructing a building.  They apparently are tough on wood, especially wood that isn’t certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.  I will pursue this further.

This post has been updated.

References

[1]                  American Iron and Steel Institute, March 2010 private communication re EPA submittals.
[2]                  US Energy Information Administration, 2007 Emissions and Sinks
[3]                  UNFCC, “Estimation, Reporting, and Accounting of Harvested Wood Products”, GCCC/7P/2003/7, Oct 2003
[4]                  US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, LULUCF & Annex 3, Table 200
[5]                  Heath and Birdsey, “Carbon trends of productive temperate forests of the coterminous United States”, Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, Volume 70, Oct. 1993
[6]                  United States Department of Agriculture, Statistical Tables, 2007

His writings remain crucial reading today. Even now his words cast an important light on our relationship with the planet. In this week’s space we celebrate Thoreau’s birthday by reflecting on his work and explaining how organizations are carrying on his legacy.

Thoreau was born in in Concord, Massachusetts, and he was one of America’s first and most important environmentalists. He is remembered best today for his book Walden, which describes his most famous exploit—leaving civilization to live in solitude on the banks of nearby Walden Pond. Thoreau was a gifted writer as well as a naturalist, abolitionist, philosopher, conservationist, and visionary environmentalist who could see the consequences of unrestrained and irresponsible consumption of resources.

Wastefulness was anathema to Thoreau. “Thank God men cannot fly,” he wrote, “and waste the sky as well as the earth.” Environmental stewardship was a cornerstone of his philosophy. He was constantly aware of what he used, what was a waste, and what was a necessity. Most of all, he opposed excess: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

Treating the environment with respect was a matter of economic efficiency to Thoreau and a moral imperative. “We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander,” he wrote. We can be the best humans we can be only by recognizing that there is more to the world than us. “What we call Wildness is a civilization other than our own,” he wrote. “In Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

Thoreau laid the foundation for modern-day environmentalism. He articulated a philosophy based on environmental and social responsibility, resource efficiency, and living simply that is as inspiring now as it was then. He believed that to live a good life we must keep the wild intact.

His message is more important now than ever in an age of massive oil spills, destructive drilling methods, extreme weather, and climate change misinformation campaigns. And public lands are under attack. But Thoreau also understood that times of crises are also times of great opportunity. He writes, “Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”

Organizations are hard at work to green the American economy and protect the nation’s wild places through strong conservation practices. This map from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, for example, demonstrates clean energy progress in his home state. The Walden Woods Project and other local groups are currently in charge of the conservation of the forest surrounding Walden Pond, having successfully defeated bids to build an office park and condominiums in Thoreau’s former home.

Thoreau’s birthday is all the more important considering that the United Nations declared 2011 the International Year of Forests. Thoreau wrote: “What would human life be without forests, those natural cities?” Forests account for 80 percent of terrestrial biodiversity and cover 31 percent of the total land area of the world. Deforestation has a devastating effect on the global ecosystem. While conservation groups currently protect the woods of Walden Pond, not all of the world’s forests are so lucky.

This summer, take a page out of Thoreau’s book. Check out CelebrateForests.com, the U.S. homepage for the U.N. International Year of Forests, to find tools and tips to act locally and events in your area. Or explore the National Park Conservation Association website to find ways to take action to protect your national parks. And, if you’ve read all the Thoreau you can on your summer reading list, take a trip to the Walden Woods to get in touch with your inner environmentalist.

– A CAP cross-post

Related Post:

• Science: Global warming is killing U.S. trees, a dangerous carbon-cycle feedback

Below are earlier comments from the Facebook commenting system:

BigBear Colorado

Thoreau’s Walden contributed to my leaving the consumer society, building a cabin in the mountains and living a self-sustaining off-grid existence. Read Walden!

July 17 at 12:39pm

Beth Riffel Brocchini

…and then read Sand County Almanac!

July 17 at 1:36pm

Mike Roddy

Contemplating this great man is a lovely and inspirational way to start a Sunday morning.

With all of our knowledge of forests’ role in moderating the water cycle, providing habitat for thousands of species, and, especially, sequestering carbon, we continue to destroy them. Americans are the worst, consuming an absurd 25% of the earth’s wood products, for things like paper towels, packaging, and two by fours and chipboard used to build the most fragile houses in the developed world.

Having destroyed over 90% of our own primary forests, we are now dining on Canadian old growth from the boreal, which holds more carbon than anywhere else on earth. USFS scientists Heath and Birdsey once calculated that if we left only US forests alone that carbon sequestration would increase by 1.2 billion tons annually.

This could actually change fairly painlessly, by switching to durable substitutes for wood. The main reason it has never happened is that the timber industry pioneered greenwashing, and coopted the press and politicians. Even climate activists are very weak on this subject. Restoring our magnificent forests is a necessity if we are going to slow climate change.

July 17 at 10:23am

Gary Herstein

I confess that Thoreau is not amongst my favorites. (I always preferred Emerson with his communally based “Eroica” of the individual.) Thoreau, to me, always stands out as the paradigm commissioner of what Heinlein (of all people) called the “Sears Roebuck Fallacy.” (Admittedly, Sears Roebuck did not exist at the time of Walden, but the name is analogical, not literal.)

Basically, good Henry David resolves to go forth and live like a Man in the woods, rejecting the industrial civilization that has so corrupted human purpose. So, first things first, he decides to build himself a house. So he grabs up his handy axe to go out and chop down some trees. But wait a minute! Where’d he get the axe?

Why, the Sears Roebuck catalog, of course.

Next, he resolves to gather some meat from the forest, so he grabs his rifle to go hunt… but wait a minute! Where’d the rifle come from?

Why, the Sears Roebuck catalog, of course.

Same for the plow he uses in his field, the seeds he uses to sew his crops.

Same for the electicity that powers his lights, the internet that gives him connection to the world, the clean water he drinks, the health care he relies upon — only now we’re not talking about Henry David, are we? — etc.

If we are going to save ourselves, it won’t be by pretending to walk away from industrial civilization — a move that was basically impossible even in Thoreau’s time, and whose pretense now constitutes the most self-involved sort of destructive hypocrisy imaginable. Rather, it will be by remaking that civilization upon a foundation of renewable energy sources by people actively contributing to that remaking.

(Arguably, at least, Thoreau himself was aware that he never really left the world — I mean, he didn’t even go out into the wild places, but simply settled on some land that was walking distance from Concord. But the pretense pours out of every page, while the recognition otherwise is only ever barely noticed.)

July 17 at 7:53pm

Jeffrey Davis

That’s a pretty big misreading of the book.

“I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.”

July 17 at 10:23pm

Gary Herstein

You might consider re-reading the final paragraph above. That single sentence scarcely compensates for the entire book’s length of pretending that that sojourn was ever interrupted in the first place.

July 17 at 10:29pm

Jeffrey Davis

The sentence I quoted occurs in the first paragraph of the book. He didn’t pretend for long.

Thoreau’s critics have always been far more reductionist than he was. The temptation of try to turn his example into axioms and corrolaries eventually becomes a “brain spider” and produces fairly astonishing criticism.

July 18 at 1:47pm

Phil Jelatis

Thoreau’s incredibly detailed notes on the local flora and the timing of spring flowering have been used to document climate change. http://planetforward.org/i​dea/thoreau’s-woods-reveal​-patterns-of-climate-chang​ e/change. His words always inspire. I stand here at his cabin site near Walden Pond where I brought my daughters one beautiful day last summer.

July 17 at 6:39pm

Mimi Eden

Ok Phil, are you here???? Girls???

July 17 at 7:46pm

Jeffrey Davis

Exactly, Thoreau was primarily a naturalist. He noted the time of first arrivals, flowerings, the depth of ponds, how many x and y survived the winter, the number of eggs which hatched, what grew where. Etc. He was inventing a science.

July 18 at 10:00am

janumakonda

Excellent birthday tribute to great Environmentalist Henry David Thoreau. It is quite inspiring. Thanks for publishing this fine piece.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP), India.
Wind energy Expert.
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail​.com

July 18 at 12:23am

Jeffrey Davis

If you avoided reading Walden when you were in school because you thought it was going to be dull, read it now that you’re an adult. It’s just amazingly different than you imagined.

July 17 at 10:40am

A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists places most of the blame for deforestation on industry, not local farmers. Smallholder and subsistence farmers have historically been blamed as leading culprits in ripping down tropical forests, but new data shows that commercial agriculture (beef, soy, and palm oil in particular) and timber production are now the leading culprits.

Small-scale farming has become less important to deforestation in recent decades, as rural populations have leveled off or declined and large businesses producing commodities for urban and export markets have expanded into tropical forest regions.

Deforestation has changed from a “state-initiated” process to an “enterprise-driven” one. The major agents of deforestation are corporations that analyze it as an economic alternative, and choose it instead of other options because it is advantageous in terms of dollars and cents.

Deforestation contributes somewhere between 15% – 20% of anthropogenic carbon emissions.

Greenpeace has been trying to raise awareness of the corporate impacts: Last year, the organization ran a successful KitKat campaign that forced Nestle to cut ties with companies that represented a “high risk” to deforestation.

Greenpeace is currently targeting Barbie doll’s parent company, Mattel, with its Barbie got dumped campaign — promising to aggressively campaign against the company if it doesn’t work to address deforestation in its production of the doll.

Also, two 15-year old girls recently started a campaign to take palm oil out of Girl Scout cookies after learning the treats were contributing to habitat loss for orangutans and climate change.

It will take more campaigns like these to radically shift industry practices and halt deforestation. Now that deforestation has shifted from a “state-initiated” process to an “enterprise-driven” one, according to UCS, empowered consumers may be able to make a bigger impact on the problem.

— Tyce Herrman

Fighting Deforestation

President Barack Obama “made his first public intervention in the Copenhagen climate summit” by supporting the Norway-Brazil plan to allow rich countries to fund the protection of rainforests. “”I am very impressed,” Obama said after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, “with the model that has been built between Norway and Brazil that allows for effective monitoring and ensures that we are making progress in avoiding deforestation of the Amazon.”

International approval for the Norway-Brazil proposal for a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanism still has a ways to go, especially as targets for reductions of deforestation have not yet been determined. In a possible breakthrough for the integrity of such programs, Google presented tools for the accurate monitoring of the rates of deforestation via climate satellite data.

Tuvalu Contretemps

Tuvalu’s proposal to amend the Kyoto Protocol to mandate strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from all nations continued to embroil official negotiations, causing the shutdown of today’s plenary. China led objections to Tuvalu’s request for formal discussions, concerned that the negotiations could end up breaking the Kyoto Protocol’s delicate balance. Formal negotiations have been suspended until Saturday, when it is possible the delegates may take a formal vote on the amendments — an unprecedented event.

European Disunion

Three European countries received awards from the International Climate Action Network — two for setting the talks back and one for helping progress. Poland was deemed a Fossil Fool for preventing the European Union from strengthening its 2020 emissions targets in Copenhagen, while Germany earned opprobrium for its proposal that funding for climate assistance should be taken away from other international aid programs. In contrast, France was praised for challenging other EU members to close the “loophole in the accounting of emissions for forest management” — namely, getting unfair credit for existing forests — in Europe.

United States

The United States continued to have a strong presence behind the scenes and in side events, with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack joining a panel on the future of international agriculture, rich and poor. While discussing his agency’s plans to expand renewable energy in the United States, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar noted that President Bush “simply slept” through global warming. Salazar brushed off questions from activists about his agency’s continued support for the expansion of offshore drilling and coal mining.

Deforestation in Nigeria (Foreign and Commonwealth Office photo)

The United Kingdom’s Eliasach Report on deforestation and climate change concludes that “Using appropriate techniques, forest emissions can be estimated with similar confidence to emissions estimates in other sectors.” Glenn Horowitz explains the significance of this:

That’s very good news, as approximately 20 percent of total global warming pollution comes from deforestation, more than all the world’s cars, trucks, planes, and ships combined. As the United States and the world move towards a system in which these forests are valued for their immense carbon storage, it’s critical that we make those valuations as accurate as possible—so we can know exactly how much a particular forest conservation project (and ultimately a particular country) is actually reducing emissions.

Of course, there’s a key caveat in The Eliasch Review’s conclusion: “using appropriate techniques.” Although these appropriate techniques are available and have been applied in many projects, deploying them at the global scale needed to end deforestation will require financial and human investment.

The investment involved is pretty modest (“the costs of monitoring forest projects are typically less than $1 per ton of carbon reduced, often much less”) but the time scale is quite urgent since deforestation is proceeding very rapidly. What’s more, you tend to have your most severe deforestation issues in countries where the overall quality of governance is low. That tends to make it difficult in practice to do things even if they’re cheap and technically feasible.

According to the World Resources Institute, the razing of forests from Indonesia to Brazil is responsible for the release of five billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, which amounts to 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — more than all the cars and trucks in the world. The international effort to comprehensively fund forest protection as part of a new climate treaty is known as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). Experts estimate that an investment of about $10 to $20 billion a year will cut deforestation by half, if properly implemented. This is one of the cheapest routes to cutting global warming pollution, even ignoring the $4.5 to $5 trillion in benefits of saving the world’s tropical forests. As Papua New Guinea’s climate negotiator Kevin Conrad said last month:

We have to value forests when they are alive and standing. Presently, we only value them when they’re dead.

Saving the world’s tropical forests is a profound challenge. A funding framework controlled by corporations and international bodies raises great concerns from representatives for indigenous people, who worry that “States and Carbon Traders will take more control over our forests.” “Where countries are corrupt,” the United Nations notes, “the potential for REDD corruption is dangerous.” Realizing these fears, a $100 million scandal involving false carbon credits swept Papua New Guinea this summer.

“Logging companies may turn into carbon companies,” warns conservationist Rob Dodwell, who notes that only efforts that strengthen local communities rather than reward multinational corporations have any chance of being fair, sustainable, or trustworthy. An international framework to solve deforestation cannot ignore the “links between the exploitation of natural resources and the funding of conflict and corruption.” In other words, storing carbon must not be the only reason to save the forests.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) have been leading efforts in the U.S. Senate to confront international deforestation. In February, Lugar said he hopes the United States will “exercise leadership in protecting forests and responding to the risks of climate change”:

Deforestation is a critical national security challenge because of its connections with threats from climate change and food security.

The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), passed by the House in June, “provides funding for tropical countries to prepare and implement plans to reduce deforestation, as well as for achieving these reduction goals.” ACES establishes private and public financing from polluters to prevent deforestation, and would create an “International Climate Change Adaptation Program within the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide adaptation assistance to the most vulnerable developing countries.”

Last week, Sens. Kerry and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced the Senate version of ACES, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. The international forestry provisions in the bill “echo those originally included in the House bill,” though it “would allow international offsets to account for a quarter of projects annually rather than the half called for in the House bill,” thus making the private offsets program more reliable, and shifting more responsibility to public deforestation projects.

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