Hopes for stored carbon in CP2

Thursday 13 August 2009

FORESTRY AND WOOD PROCESSING WILL BE ABLE TO PLAY A BIGGER ROLE IN COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE IF THE CARBON STORED IN HARVESTED WOOD PRODUCTS IS RECOGNISED IN THE SECOND KYOTO COMMITMENT PERIOD (CP2) STARTING IN 2013.

At present, Kyoto rules assume that all the carbon stored in a tree becomes an emission the instant a tree is harvested. This is clearly not the case – forest products used in buildings or for furniture, or even buried in a landfill, may lock-up carbon for decades or even centuries. Recognising this in the
rules for CP2 could make investment in Kyoto forests a much more attractive proposition. It would
also be a great benefit to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas ledger in the years ahead. NZFOA chief executive David Rhodes returned from Bonn, Germany, in early June from negotiations which have started to shape the rules which will apply in CP2. He is optimistic of success in this area. But he’s
more cautious about the prospects of a rule change to allow for offsetting – harvesting a plantation in
one area and replanting it elsewhere. “New Zealand has made other developed countries aware of our land-use flexibility problems but it will be a challenge to get the rules changed forjust our benefit.
“ENGOs are nervous that it might be a new incentive for indigenous forest to be clear-felled and replaced with plantations. This is already a major concern in places like Indonesia whererainforests are being converted to palm oil plantations.” Nonetheless, Rhodes was successful in getting New Zealand’s objectives included in a statement by the International Council of Forest and Paper
Associations (ICFPA). This will be used by forest industries world-wide to help shape their national positions. The statement says three elements are needed to make forests part of the climate change solution:

• Embedding sustainable forest management at the very core of the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) agreement, while allowing for some flexibility for harvested plantation forests to be relocated on non-forest land.

• Recognition of the long lasting carbon pools in harvested wood products and the potential for
growing these further.

• Recognition of wood biomass as a substitute for fossil fuels and of harvested wood as a substitute
for carbon intensive building materials.

Because of the major contribution of deforestation to increases in world greenhouse gas levels, the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries) agreement will be a cornerstone of the United Nations climate change policy for CP2.

“As it stands, REDD is essentially about developed countries paying developing countries not to deforest. But for developed countries it is a cheap form of mitigation and for undeveloped countries it offers a large and ongoing source of foreign exchange. So there are big incentives for finding ways to make it work,” says Rhodes.

Among the issues to be overcome:
• Finding a way to identify forests that really would have been lost without REDD from those that
were never really at risk.

• Ensuring that native forests are not replaced by planted forests.

• Ensuring benefits flow to local communities rather than governments, so that the locals are part of the solution.

If REDD units are freely available in the market they will have a significant influence on the price of carbon. A study carried out for MAF last year estimates a price reduction of 50 per cent. However, countries such as the US those looking to utilise REDD units are more worried about the lack of credible units than an over-supply.