GW69 Feature
The final assault
Increasing
use of biofuels is an oft-touted solution to the
impending oil crisis. Deepak Rughani looks at how
misguided UN climate policy could trigger
unprecedented ecosystem loss
The
Industrial North has already steered
climate change policy strongly in its
favour, with precious little achieved in
terms of mitigation. However new policy is
being drafted which will eclipse the
history of ‘false solutions’. If passed, in
combination with the current rush to
bioenergy and significant loopholes in the
REDD mechanism (Reduced Emissions from
Deforestation and Degradation), it could
sound the death knell for natural
ecosystems.
The idea is simple; enhance the capacity of landscapes to sequester carbon and reward the corporations who make this happen with carbon credits. But the plan has limited scientific basis and conversion of ecosystems to plantations is a key part of the strategy.
Central to the discussion is the fundamental building block of ecological stability – biodiversity. Each species has its place contributing to the complex biological web that holds ecosystems together and which also drives a number of wider ecosystem functions or ‘services’ such as rainfall recycling. Replace the earth’s last remaining ecosystems with biologically sterile plantations, and our already-faltering rainfall cycles could completely break down. How dissimilar is this to the ancient Easter Islanders who felled their last sub-tropical forests changing their habitat and freshwater supply forever?
At Copenhagen last year and again at Bonn this year the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) introduced draft texts to include forests, farmland, agricultural soils, grassland and wetlands into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for offsetting purposes.
The CDM is already problematic allowing the North to sidestep responsibility for reducing emissions at home; but these proposals are far more sinister. Instead of protecting ecosystems, the new draft - which comes under the Kyoto Protocol title Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) - actively promotes the notion that industrial plantations hold more carbon than natural habitats.
At the UN technical meeting in Bonn some of the large NGOs, such as the US based Environmental Defence Fund, laid out complex analyses showing how a carbon dividend from industrial forest and agriculture could be assessed. But their calculations, like those used to justify agrofuels, are fundamentally flawed. For one thing key components such as emissions from initial land use change, as landscapes are converted from, say, natural forests to tree plantations, are simply ignored, assumed carbon neutral. So is the vast carbon slug associated with indirect land use change (ILUC) as communities are displaced into new habitat.
The idea is simple; enhance the capacity of landscapes to sequester carbon and reward the corporations who make this happen with carbon credits. But the plan has limited scientific basis and conversion of ecosystems to plantations is a key part of the strategy.
Central to the discussion is the fundamental building block of ecological stability – biodiversity. Each species has its place contributing to the complex biological web that holds ecosystems together and which also drives a number of wider ecosystem functions or ‘services’ such as rainfall recycling. Replace the earth’s last remaining ecosystems with biologically sterile plantations, and our already-faltering rainfall cycles could completely break down. How dissimilar is this to the ancient Easter Islanders who felled their last sub-tropical forests changing their habitat and freshwater supply forever?
At Copenhagen last year and again at Bonn this year the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) introduced draft texts to include forests, farmland, agricultural soils, grassland and wetlands into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for offsetting purposes.
The CDM is already problematic allowing the North to sidestep responsibility for reducing emissions at home; but these proposals are far more sinister. Instead of protecting ecosystems, the new draft - which comes under the Kyoto Protocol title Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) - actively promotes the notion that industrial plantations hold more carbon than natural habitats.
At the UN technical meeting in Bonn some of the large NGOs, such as the US based Environmental Defence Fund, laid out complex analyses showing how a carbon dividend from industrial forest and agriculture could be assessed. But their calculations, like those used to justify agrofuels, are fundamentally flawed. For one thing key components such as emissions from initial land use change, as landscapes are converted from, say, natural forests to tree plantations, are simply ignored, assumed carbon neutral. So is the vast carbon slug associated with indirect land use change (ILUC) as communities are displaced into new habitat.
These
exclusions along with numerous caveats
ensure EDF’s analysis demonstrates carbon
gains. As one participant remarked, maybe
EDF should consider rebranding themselves
the Environmental Derivatives Fund!
Irrespective of the bogus analysis, LULUCF proposals cut right across any merit which REDD may still have by supporting industrial forestry and therefore rewarding forest degradation. Alongside, it violates the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The LULUCF draft policy also includes two controversial technologies: biochar and ‘no-till’ agriculture. Industrial biochar is the large-scale conversion of woody biomass to charcoal for the purposes of carbon sequestration in soils. The foremost biochar lobby group, the International Biochar Initiative (IBI) also promote biochar as a soil conditioner and variously by others as a fertiliser. Unfortunately these ‘benefits’ fail to stand up to scrutiny. Biochar has been shown to oxidise quickly in some studies and to accelerate the oxidation of soil organic carbon (humus) in others. Two recent studies also cast doubt on its value as a fertiliser and as a carbon store.
The controversy has led to a formal declaration against biochar attracting signatures from 150 NGOs. Even an expert group on biodiversity and climate change (CBD and UNEP) recently questioned the long term stability of biochar in soils and the impacts it would have on further land use change. Despite all this, the IBI is lobbying hard to win CDM accreditation for biochar and inclusion of biochar in the US Climate Bill.
Agriculture is similarly tricky. ‘No-till’ GM soya is advocated as a way of locking up soil carbon. The theory is that by drilling the seeds, emissions from tilling are avoided and this should be rewarded with carbon credits. Aerial chemical applications are ignored and no mention is made of the loss of biodiverse organic community agriculture which also locks in carbon whilst benefitting biodiversity, crop resilience and food sovereignty.
The assault on ecosystems is already relentless; rainforest alone is being lost at a rate of one acre per second. Yet LULUCF in the CDM, in combination with all existing pressures, risks consigning us to an Easter Island scenario on a planetary scale.
At Bonn in August the UNFCCC have scheduled a further meeting to agree a number of draft texts. This may be our last chance to act.
Irrespective of the bogus analysis, LULUCF proposals cut right across any merit which REDD may still have by supporting industrial forestry and therefore rewarding forest degradation. Alongside, it violates the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The LULUCF draft policy also includes two controversial technologies: biochar and ‘no-till’ agriculture. Industrial biochar is the large-scale conversion of woody biomass to charcoal for the purposes of carbon sequestration in soils. The foremost biochar lobby group, the International Biochar Initiative (IBI) also promote biochar as a soil conditioner and variously by others as a fertiliser. Unfortunately these ‘benefits’ fail to stand up to scrutiny. Biochar has been shown to oxidise quickly in some studies and to accelerate the oxidation of soil organic carbon (humus) in others. Two recent studies also cast doubt on its value as a fertiliser and as a carbon store.
The controversy has led to a formal declaration against biochar attracting signatures from 150 NGOs. Even an expert group on biodiversity and climate change (CBD and UNEP) recently questioned the long term stability of biochar in soils and the impacts it would have on further land use change. Despite all this, the IBI is lobbying hard to win CDM accreditation for biochar and inclusion of biochar in the US Climate Bill.
Agriculture is similarly tricky. ‘No-till’ GM soya is advocated as a way of locking up soil carbon. The theory is that by drilling the seeds, emissions from tilling are avoided and this should be rewarded with carbon credits. Aerial chemical applications are ignored and no mention is made of the loss of biodiverse organic community agriculture which also locks in carbon whilst benefitting biodiversity, crop resilience and food sovereignty.
The assault on ecosystems is already relentless; rainforest alone is being lost at a rate of one acre per second. Yet LULUCF in the CDM, in combination with all existing pressures, risks consigning us to an Easter Island scenario on a planetary scale.
At Bonn in August the UNFCCC have scheduled a further meeting to agree a number of draft texts. This may be our last chance to act.
▾
▾