An Unlikely Solution For Climate Change

Building forests offsets emissions without hurting industry.

Alan Oxley, Forbes.Com, 12.22.08

Tucked away in a voluminous assessment released last year by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there's an incredibly cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It's in the chapter on forestry.

Given the global economic crisis, the cost of "going green" is--not surprisingly--becoming an increasingly prominent factor as international regulators consider drafting environmental policies. This shift in priorities was evident in the latest round of U.N. climate talks, which ended last Friday in Poland.

After two weeks of negotiation, it looked as if participants were no closer to consensus on the terms of the treaty that will replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol, the 1992 agreement that requires most developed nations to reduce their carbon emissions. Issues of cost are one of the main reasons for this stalemate on emissions caps. One solution? Build new forests.

The IPCC report notes that if governments worked to exploit the natural capacity of forests to absorb carbon dioxide--and deliberately aimed to increase that sink--as much as 40 to 50% of human carbon emissions could be offset. That's remarkable. But even more astounding is the fact that this extraordinary possibility has been largely ignored.

Instead, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), Greenpeace and the European Commission have sought to join their long-standing campaign to halt commercial forestry worldwide with any new global contract to halt emissions. These organizations argue that, if developing countries in tropical regions cease harvesting natural forests for lumber and other resources, emissions will be reduced by around 20%.

But this result is less than ideal. As the IPCC report shows, the alternative--to actively build forests worldwide--would more than double that rate of absorption and do so at lower cost.

The counter-argument is that there's a human cost to the forestry strategy; namely, it will impoverish people living in tropical developing countries.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), most forest land in these countries is cleared to free up land for agricultural production, create living space or to obtain wood for fuel. By imposing blanket restrictions on deforestation, Western groups like WWF and Greenpeace are sentencing developing nations to a drop in their food supplies as well as stunted economic development.

This kind of collateral damage exposes one of the subtle downsides of the Kyoto Protocol. As the WWF noted in a recent report, green activists don't embrace strategies like forestry regrowth, which expand carbon offsets. Even though this kind of initiative often offers the best benefits for both the environment and the economy, environmental groups are often reluctant to consider them because they ease the pressure on business and industry to reduce emissions by other means--like switching away from fossil fuels as a source of energy.

In other words, green activists aren't motivated purely to reduce emissions; they're also angling to close down traditional energy industries. And if the poor get hurt in the process, it would seem the end justifies the means.

But the economic crisis changed all that and rendered these ulterior political motives unrealistic. Now it's not just the economic well-being of people in developing nations that's at risk from anti-industry climate policies.

Apprehension is also growing among Italians and Germans. Their leaders worry that local companies will not be able to bear the heavy costs of the low emission targets the European Union plans to set in a new agreement. Pressure from German business and unions has forced German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the architects of the Kyoto Protocol, to put her country's economic interest ahead of green ideals.

With businesses and families alike facing a shortage of cash, it's time to consider expanding carbon offsets. That means seriously considering the significant role sustainable forestry stands to play in the fight against climate change.

In the words of President-elect Barack Obama, "The time for change has come." And when it comes to global negotiations on climate change, that change will mean measuring the effectiveness of green initiatives by their benefit to both the environment and the economy.

Alan Oxley is chairman of World Growth International, a U.S.-based free market non-governmental organization, and the author of a new report on how forestry can combat climate change while bolstering the economy.

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