The average vehicle on Australian roads is ten years old. That trend is unlikely to change quickly; you can safely conclude that virtually all the Ford Territories, HSV Clubsports and Lexus LS470s being bought today – let alone the next few years – will still be on the road in 2020. And, even if they were to start today, it would take Ford and Holden three to five years to produce hybrid Falcons or Commodores (as an example of more fuel-efficient vehicles); Toyota can do it a little faster because there is a hybrid Camry already in production overseas. So much of our transport emissions over the next decade and a half is already locked in.
The timescale for replacing Australia’s baseload coal-fired power stations with something more efficient (and that includes renewables) is similarly long; while we might stabilize emissions from the electricity sector by 2020, I very much doubt we’ll make substantial cuts before then without going on something akin to a war footing; the appetite for such substantial sacrifices isn’t clear to me.
But the roadmap from the Bali climate change conference implied emissions cuts by rich countries of 25-40% by 2020. How is this circle going to be squared? I suspect this question has been keeping Penny Wong, and the rest of the federal Cabinet, rather busy. And a big clue can be found in Ross Garnaut’s interim climate change report, and Kevin Rudd’s activities in Papua New Guinea recently.
PNG’s emissions from deforestation, alone, are roughly one-quarter of Australia’s. If we could stop that logging, and count it towards our reduction total, we’d be a long way towards our 2020 emissions reduction target. And it be faster, easier, and less painful for everyone except illlegal (mostly Malaysian, I believe) logging companies than actually making cuts ourselves. Indonesia, while a greater challenge to deal with, offers even more potential for relatively cheap and quick emissions cuts.
So how do we stop the deforestation? In short, pay people more to not chop down forests, instead of paying them to do so. In the long, pay people for the tonnes of avoided greenhouse emissions. But to do that, you need scientific research to accurately characterise how much greenhouse emissions are locked up in particular patches of rainforest, so that the value can be traded appropriately. And, what do you know, look what Rudd announced in PNG last week – an agreement to cooperate to do just that:
Recognising that a fundamental requirement for participation in global carbon markets will be the ability to measure change in forest carbon stocks over time, Papua New Guinea and Australia will work actively together to increase Papua New Guinea’s capacity in forest carbon monitoring and assessment…
…Papua New Guinea is developing a REDD policy and necessary enabling frameworks to generate REDD carbon credits for the international market. The Government of Australia has committed to developing an Australian Emissions Trading Scheme, and will explore the options of linking to other international systems. Australia and Papua New Guinea will exchange experience and expertise that will support Papua New Guinea’s and Australia’s participation in international carbon markets.
So, if this agreement pans out, we can pay PNG to stop logging, and we can meet our emissions targets without drastic changes to our cities, hasty shutdowns of coal-fired power stations, etc. etc. To be fair, it’ll be the one greenhouse policy that our predecessor government got right.
Except it’s not that simple. Tim at GreensBlog points out some of the issues in their response to the draft Garnaut report. To summarise, aside from the problems of ensuring that those forests actually stay un-logged forever, we’re not going to be the only buyer of carbon credits in an increasingly global market. If there is to be Kyoto round 2, the other developed countries will be snorting up credits like 80’s yuppies snorting coke. So, unless we, um, “leverage our long-standing partnership with Papua New Guinea”, we won’t be getting those carbon credits on the cheap.
But there’s a further problem with this whole thing. The timber logged from PNG isn’t being used locally – it’s being exported. And the demand isn’t going to go away just because one source of supply goes. Unless the problem is tackled globally, the net result could just be faster logging in countries that haven’t signed on to trade carbon credits. It’s the same as unilaterally shutting Australia’s coal mines – pretty soon, more coal would be mined elsewhere to take up the slack.
While the issue of emissions-shifting is a general problem with any emissions trading scheme that’s not absolutely universal – it seems to me to be a particularly severe concern in this sector. It will be interesting to see how this issue is handled as the new global climate change agreement is negotiated.
A small part of the solution re cars is that it’s quite possible to get 30-50% reduction in emissions depending on which car you purchase right now, and that can only get better. So cars bought in five years should be at least 20% more efficient, and by 2020 will be much more than 20% efficient. I don’t think the cars will be a big problem to meet the declared target. Except for the growing size of the fleet as well, spurred on by immigration and population growth. Ok so we’re stuffed there.
Again with stationary power, a modern power plant is already far more efficient that our current stocks, so if/when we replace our existing plant we’ll meet those first round targets. It’s meeting growth in demand that screws us again. But there’s a lot of low hanging fruit in energy efficiency.
As for PNGs and elsewhere’s forests, there are so many complex problems with that, and we all still want our timber. Stopping deforestation wil have so many benefits, but accounting for it all decently requires a lot more thinking.
Time to stop artificially restricting the Australian timber industry (plantation and native), since trees are the only carbon neutral building material (apart from strawbale, mudbrick etc).
Ignoring freight for the moment, the Falcon, Commodore and Camry/Avalon designs for the next 5 years are effectively locked in. They may lop a few percentage points off their fuel consumption, but that’s about it.
Ditto for imported four wheel drives.
All of that will easily get chewed up by population growth.
Consumer preference will see less and less Falcons etc being bought. The new Falcon spells the end to my mind of broadmeadows manufacturing. I cannot believe the drugs they must be on. Their claimed fuel efficiency is what, 11 l./100 km? It’s perfectly possible to buy a car today with the same utility and for almost the same price that gets 7 l./100km. Shop a little harder, pay a little more, get 4.5l./100km. In 12 years I’m sure that the commodore replacement (ha, not built here!) will get those figures. Meeting the 20% figure.
But yeah. Population growth, no heavy rail (freight or commuter) investment, we’re screwed.
Good post Robert, as always.
I’m rather sceptical of the cars and improving fuel efficiency notion. I think it would be interesting to compare the fuel consumption of a family Ford from the late 70’s or early 80’s with their equivalents available now. I can also recall lots of small cars in the 70s and 80s that had similar fuel economy as small cars now. It seems as if a lot of efficiency gains are swallowed up by making bigger small cars or cranking up their power.
I tend to agree with Wilful that consumers will drive the change to more fuel efficient cars – depends on bowser price I guess. Ford and Holden must have their heard up their asses if they can’t (didn’t) see this coming.
Climate change denialists say that stopping deforestation doesn’t work cos the trees eventually die, releasing all that carbon again. I’m guessing they missed the lesson on the carbon cycle at highschool. Or they are stoopid.
and petrol will probably have to go up a lot more before it really starts ot influence car purchasing. Even a 4liter per 100km improvement equates to only $1200 per year per 20,000km (assuming $1.50 per litre petrol). Given that fuel efficient cars tend to be smaller and/or more expensive upfront, this doesn’t add up as an incentive for a lot of people yet.
wilful says
I was able to reduce emissions from my car over 80% last week alone. I’ve also access to a system which allows a +90% reduction of emissions from commercial aircraft.
I call it “leaving the car at home” and “not taking an overseas holiday”.
Oddly, not much support for these ideas amongst my Greenie neighbours.
Just a minute seen these type of runaway arguments before,how things cannot be done.And are you kidding me that you are so impressed by Penny Wong already,that you see her struggling with a fate and drama befalling the earth,and by just simply getting elected,this has all the quality of mind to find resolute and workable solutions!?This stuff isnt going to be solved by the intended production of statistics and what they may mean,or the general view that keeps on revitalising itself ,whilst still confounding itself more than anyone else interested.For example I have known for some considerable time,that trees are not so active as living creatures under certain conditions,what this may mean when one is cutting them and being concerned,at that point,about greenhouse gases,is quite well known by the C.S.I.R.O especially Australian species.Shipping can be adjusted to tidal matters,more effectively,I would say byapplying some technical understandings.The PNG forests need saving as much as possible for conservation reasons rather than Greenhouse.How these matters are coalescing as one phenomena has worried me for some time.Should we give up metal fuel tanks for bonnet top flexible tanks and drip feed our motors of cars,and every hundred kilometres drive into a servo,to freeze the car over except the fuel tank and motor…ExAir Hilsch Vortex Tube ..Darwin Headquarters Australia!?Laugh now, think about it later,because there are just too many people rigid beyond belief in their thinking of solving these issues.
Where has the common sense gone? The government is committed to giving tax reductions. The public are expecting to commit to global warming solutions. So give the tax cuts and apply a carbon tax. Nett cost to the public is positive as the inflationary aspect of the tax cuts is nulled and the money relocated to energy restructuring will reduce future power increases.
Why won’t this happen? Greed.
Has anyone done any studies of petrol price vs. fleet consumption vs. credit expansion yet? If demand for petrol is deemed to be inelastic, I wonder where the boundaries are? On my (infrequent) trips to the petrol station, I’m increasingly coming across people who are putting in only $5 or $10 into their 1990s Commodore. It must get them exactly one lap around town if that. I can understand why Robert is so pessimistic about our ability to reduce carbon emissions via the motor fleet, but behaviour can and does change remarkably quickly when confronted with rising costs. I suspect you’ll see more kids walking to school if petrol gets to Mr Caltex’s $3.00 a litre forecast.
Robert, it’s good to see you acknowledge the previous government got something right with its ground-breaking launch of the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. It should also be noted that Australia hosted APEC last year and put the topic of climate change on top of the agenda. APEC resulted in the Sydney Declaration. This was the first time major emitting countries such as China, the US and Indonesia agreed on the goal of reducing global emissions.
Many people laud the Kyoto Protocol but how many realise that Kyoto actually excluded a mechanism to protect old growth forests? As a result, rainforest destruction is rampant in developing countries, such as our APEC neighbours Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, due to clearance for logging and oil palm plantations. Indonesia is now the world’s third worst greenhouse gas emitter due to deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires. And of course, as a developing country, Indonesia is currently not bound to meet emission targets under Kyoto. It is horrifying to think of the amount of forest and associated bio-diversity that has been lost over the past 10 years of the Kyoto Protocol.
One of the most important achievements of the recent UN Climate Change meeting in Bali was that delegates agreed to include forest protection mechanisms in future discussions about a new post-2012 climate change agreement.
But how much more rainforest might be lost in the intervening period until 2012?
The Shadow Climate Change Minister, Greg Hunt, is pushing for the Australian government to build on the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate and accept bi-partisan support for a “Global Rainforests Recovery Plan” for the period 2008-2012, with rich developed countries contributing to assist developing countries protect their forests for the good of the globe.
The post-2012 climate change agreement is scheduled to be finalised at the UN Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen in 2009. Deforestation is bound to be a major issue on the agenda at this meeting.
Addressing the problem of global deforestation is going to be a difficult task. There are many complex economic, social, governance and conservation issues to consider. The international community also has to consider how to tackle growing global demand for timber and palm oil, especially given the growing global population – currently 6.6 billion and tipped to grow to 9 billion by 2042. However, the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate website notes that “if we even halve the current global rate of deforestation, we would reduce total annual global greenhouse gas emissions by 10% – this is equivalent to more than 5 times Australia’s annual greenhouse emissions, and about 10 times the savings achieved during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (which will only reduce annual emissions by 1% by 2010)”. http://www.climatechange.gov.au/international/forests/fs-international.html
Given the savings to be made in global emissions by reducing global deforestation, surely we have to give this our best shot?
Let’s hope Australia and other rich developed countries will be in a position to report on their practical action to assist rainforest countries reduce deforestation and reduce global emissions at the UN Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.
It’s a conundrum. I’ve got no idea how it’s all going to work out. Yesterday there was an extremely pessimistic position put on ‘peak oil’ by Michael Lardelli a geneticist from the University of Adelaide on Perspective. He says that peak oil is now and that 30% less will be produced by 2020 when we will have 4 million extra people.
But the real killer is that virtually none will be available on international markets at anything like affordable prices.
On forests, I think Stern estimated that it would require $12 billion per annum to stop deforestation. The problem is that you’ve got to keep on paying until the people who would make money out of chopping trees down can make more money doing something else.
Stern also notes that the problem will ‘correct’ itself when the last tree is chopped down, which is the way we’re heading.
There is also the possibility of sequestering large quantities of carbon in the soil through new farming methods, which the farmers are getting a bit excited about. Rudd and his minions seem to be onto it also.
Another possibility is growing timber, turning it into charcoal and then crushing it and putting it into the soil. The fancy word for it is terra preta, a technique invented by the Indians in the Amazon basin 7,000 years ago. They reckon it enhances moisture carrying ability and boosts plant growth. If, as claimed, 9.5 billion tonnes of carbon per year can be sequestered that way (that’s 34.8 Gt of CO2) we’d be laughing. OK the article did say this could be achieved by the end of the century and the problem is a bit more urgent than that.
What is the efficiency of a car stuck in gridlock? Crap!
We need congestion taxes to decrease the number of cars heading to/from the CBD each day. Trolley buses (electric buses) are very smooth and that plus more bus-only lanes will slash those gridlocked lines of cars.
Electric trolleybuses use electricity, a lot of which will be fossil fuel based elctricity but they convert that electricty MUCH more efficiently than the internal combustion engine, esp one stuck in gridlock. City of London showed it can be done. . .
Convincing people such as the Pope that God is OK with condoms and having more than 2 babies is not such a good idea would have more effect on deforestation than any other suggestion to date. Haiti is a good case study of the relationship between the Pope and timber lines, as well as being a sobering preview of where the whole deforestation thing is heading. Outlawing chainsaws and anything larger than a D2 bulldozer would also be effective.
Brian: WRT Peak Oil, gawd I hope not, because the pressure to turn coal into fuel will be nearly irresistable, and while we might sequester the emissions I doubt China will.
Elizabeth: I’m happy to give the former government credit on this issue, but overall they were pathetic (and, it seems, in substantial part as a result of John Howard’s personal blind spots).
As for APEC, any negotiations made in the fag-end of the Bush White House on this issue are essentially meaningless, and the rest of the world is waiting for somebody sane to take office in 2009 before beginning to negotiate seriously with them.
Robert, spot on. But I have no idea whether Lardelli is on the money, which is one of the reasons I have no idea how things are going to work out.
You mentioned there was no taste for putting the economy on a war footing. Quite so, but this may well change in the next 10 years. One factor may be whether the sudden decline in the Arctic ice cover in 2007 is a one-off or whether it presages a complete collapse. There was good recovery in the winter, but the old ice (10 years plus) is now down to about 3% whereas it used to be 80%. I’ve read that the weather conditions which were a significant factor last year look like being repeated this year.
If something dramatic happens attitudes will change, although the complacency of the US is huge. Apparently in all the presidential debates, climate change rated just 8 questions out of over 3000 so far.
BTW Catalyst is looking at climate change tonight, specifically the polar regions, I gather.
Why do I get the feeling that Elizabeth Hart is one of Greg Hunt’s advisers?
In the greater scheme of things, I don’t think anyone will recall Howard as a very effective mover on climate change. But, the grandly titled “Global Initiative on Forests and Climate” was a good one. Not that it has (or will) made any difference to Indon land clearing.
Robert and Wilful. I’m not one of Greg Hunt’s “advisers” but I do wholeheartedly support his push for a “Global Rainforests Recovery Plan”. I’m an “ordinary person” who became interested in the problem of tropical deforestation after watching a Foreign Correspondent program back in September 2006. I’ve been researching the issue since then, and have been lobbying both the Coalition and the ALP on the issue since early last year.
I detect a hint of cynicism, Robert, about the previous government’s policies? Fair enough, we’re all entitled to our opinions. Although I think it’s fair to acknowledge it’s rather more difficult to handle these things and please everybody when you’re in government.
Last year was the first time I’ve been moved to become an “activist” and it was a pretty eye-opening experience, I can tell you. Quite frankly, I was astonished and thrilled when the government launched the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate, it was a fantastic opportunity to get attention for the world’s forests. Whatever your political views and cynicism about pre-election announcements, here was Australia offering to lead on a very important issue. Here was something we could build upon, it could have become something big!
So you might appreciate I was even more stunned and distressed by the apathetic and even derisory reaction the launch of the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate received from some “environmentalists”. At that time, I don’t think they had any appreciation of the potential for a “global fund” for forests. (I wonder if any of them read Part VI of the Stern Review – International Collective Action: 25. Reversing Emissions from Land Use Change). Since then I’ve been trying to support the GIFC in any way I can, specifically sending letters to newspapers and posting on blogs, plus continuing to write to politicians.
So yes, I guess we’re all entitled to be cynical. And I’m pretty cynical about the lack of support for the GIFC, it’s a real shame.
Why doesn’t the federal government offer the states some cash so they can make registration of fuel efficient cars much much cheaper and inefficient cars more expensive?
This will directly affect the existing car fleet as older fuel inefficient cars become less desirable, their value drops and you get the situation where the car is worth less than the amount to register it.
At the very least there should be no tax breaks for inefficient cars.
rf said:
You’re not kidding. 30 years ago the VB Commodore ranged in power from 64kW (2.85L 6-cyl) to 114kW (5.0L V8).
Today the Commodore ranges from 186kW (3.6L V6) to 270kW (6.0L V8). The Epica (the next model down) has two versions of 6 cylinder letter: 2.0L/105kW and 2.5L/115kW.
So thirty years on and there has been a massive increase in the power of vehicles such that the lowest power car in the model below the commodore is nearly as powerful as the biggest V8 commodore 30 years ago. This is an arms race. There is simply no need for cars to have this much power.
Elizabeth R, the trouble with Howards initiative was that it had the same credibility as would Mugabe championing human rights. The public had stopped listening to Howard much earlier and only examined his wild plans out of interest to see how each new scheme was to improve the wealth of the favoured. Deforestation cannot be treated in an empirical way as it is entirely a socialogical outcome. And I would be bitterly disappointed if Robert was right and Australia was looking to New Guinea to stop cutting its timber so Australians could carry on guzzling petrol, burning coal, hacking through old growth forest, and just generally believing that they can avoid any effects simply because it is all so hard.
I call it “leaving the car at home” and “not taking an overseas holiday”.
Oddly, not much support for these ideas amongst my Greenie neighbours.
Unless you have reliable statistics for people with environmentalist sympathies vs. their brownie neighbours on either of these, kindly stick such idle and unfounded slander up your arse.
Ta muchly.
BilB, I think you might be missing the point of my argument. If you can forget about the politics for a moment, and just focus on the opportunity of the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate.
In an effective post-2012 agreement, all countries will have to play their part in cutting emissions. However, on top of that, rich countries can also help poorer rainforest countries protect the rainforests, the protection of which is good for the whole world, not just the countries in question. (Kyoto doesn’t facilitate that at the moment).
I think it has been pointed out many times that, even if Australia cuts its emissions, it’s not going to amount to much in a global context. Yes, of course Australia has to lead by example and cut its emissions etc etc, but on top of that, we can contribute to a global fund to protect rainforests which might make a real difference in cutting global emissions.
But that’s just it. You can’t divorce the politics of this particular initiative from the wider debate. Nor should you.
Robert. To borrow a famous phrase from an environmental activist at Bali, “If you’re not willing to lead, please get out of the way”.
Bye
Eliz
I think what Robert is saying is that you can’t avoid politics if you’re trying to change peoples’ behaviour on a large scale – rather than saying you should do nothing but “play politics”.
Just as you can’t avoid smelly pooey stuff and bugs and dirt if you want to grow nice vegetables.
Furthermore, you have to look at the problem as a whole – “how are we going to get worldwide emissions reductions of the scale necessary”? For a green group, it has to be “how can we act to maximise global emissions reductions”?
When you look at the Howard government, as well as doing essentially nothing domestically, they provided political cover for the US government’s attempts to block any substantive global action at all on the issue. While you shouldn’t overestimate the importance of that (the US does what it does largely for domestic reasons), you shouldn’t discount it either.
If I were an environment group, I would see the removal of the Howard government as a very high-priority task in improving the chances of a good deal post-Kyoto; any such deal will have to include rainforests anyway. If they support the government’s initiative in any substantial way, they run the risk of some Australian voters (who don’t understand all the nuances) thinking that if they are concerned about greenhouse issues, it’s still OK to vote for the government. So while they may get a forest deal a little faster, they run the risk of being lumbered with another three years of Howard and thus reduce the chances of a good post-Kyoto deal.
This may be yucky politics, but, as Helen says, sometimes politics is an unavoidably yucky business.
Elizabeth, if you’ve made a special study of issues relating to forests I’d encourage you to continue to share information.
On the Howard Government, the best insight comes from the former Liberal insider Guy Pearse. He’s very cynical about the Howard Government and backs this up with massive documentation.
I’ve heard that Greg Hunt is both knowledgeable and enthusiastic and Turnbull was personally thereabouts but there are still denialists/delusionists in important positions. Nick Minchin, Andrew Robb and Ian McFarlane come to mind.
I had my say on APEC at the time. Howard was basically trying to subvert and replace the UN process. The Chinese were not amused and would never have let him succeed.
China, India and other significant developing countries agreed to do their bit at the G8 meeting at Heiligendamm three months earlier.
I don’t know a lot about the GIFC, but I understand that the initiative was a rebadging of a program Forestry Department already had on their books. Nothing wrong with that as such. I recall Indonesia welcoming it but saying it was not enough to make any real difference.
But the need is certainly there. According to this wonderful chart deforestation was worth 18.3% of total GHG emissions in 2006. I think Indonesia leads even Brazil in destroying forests, does it not?
Brian. I don’t claim to be an expert on forestry issues. As I said earlier, I became involved as an “ordinary person” and “concerned citizen” and I’m self-taught from surfing the internet etc in my “spare” time. There’s a bewildering amount of information out there. (My husband sometimes gets a little irked at the time I spend on it).
I wrote detailed letters to the relevant Ministers and Shadow Ministers last year, and I have been continuing with the correspondence ever since. (My correspondence is probably in a government file labelled “obsessive nutter”). I was also a volunteer on an environmental action group but I dropped out of that early this year as I was frustrated with the ongoing negativity. When I started I was “apolitical”, but I admit I became more partisan as it appeared the Howard Government was acting on this issue. As I mentioned earlier, I was stunned when the GIFC was announced. Whatever the reasons behind it, it was a fantastic opportunity. I assume Malcolm Turnbull was a significant driver behind it. Greg Hunt appears to be very keen and I think his heart is really in this issue.
I’m sure there were all sorts of competing interests in the Howard government. No doubt it will be the same in the Rudd government. It’s inevitable really. Again, coming into this “apolitically” I didn’t have any firm prejudices when I started. I also didn’t have the faintest clue about Kyoto (and I don’t think I was on my own there). I have been interested to read some of the arguments against Kyoto, e.g. “Time to ditch Kyoto”, Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner, Nature 449, 973-975 (25 October 2007).
I was mainly prejudiced against Kyoto because it deliberately excluded a mechanism to protect old growth forests. So as a result, 10 years of possible protection has been lost. And also developing nations weren’t required to meet emission targets (and yes, I understand there were reasons for that at the time.) I’m concerned about this ongoing dichotomy between developed and developing countries, particularly as most of the top emitters are developing countries with growing economies and very large populations. It also seems incongruous to me that countries such as China and PNG are in the same category. But there you go, I admit I’m no expert.
Anyway, I guess we could argue on about APEC and Kyoto til the cows come home and still disagree. It’s all water under the bridge now because the focus is on formulating a fair and effective post-2012 climate change agreement. For me, in my own small way, the focus is still on building on the possibilities of the GIFC.
I know Rachmat Witoelar dismissed our $200 million as a relatively small amount for the scale of the problem. However, it was a start, and a step forward in recognition of the problem. Anyway, I’m disappointed that more people didn’t jump on board last year and try and build momentum for an effective global fund for forests.
Elizabeth, we’re mostly concerned citizens and ordinary people here, though some have academic qualifications which may or may not be relevant to what they blog on.
Possibly people didn’t jump on board Howard’s initiative because a large part of his motivation was to make himself look competitive with Labor on climate change when he found out that the electorate really cared about it. Because of this the groundwork was probably not done properly. That’s a guess.
It’s my impression that the Indonesians at the highest level do care about the forests and may well be more effective than us in seeing that it is on the agenda. They have some problems with corruption closer to the coalface, as it were, which they know about. It’s similar in Brazil, where people get shot if they are in the way and policing on the ground is very thin.
Robert. Thanks for your illuminating insights into how environmental groups might work, i.e. try and stymie any positive initiatives because they don’t like the Howard Government. That explains a few things.
Last year we had a unique opportunity, with APEC being hosted by Australia and with the UN climate change meeting being held in Indonesia, to get attention for the tropical rainforest destruction issue.
In my letters to the then government and opposition back in early March, I requested this issue be put on the APEC agenda. In the end, the topic of climate change was put on top of the APEC agenda. Given that APEC is primarily about trade and development, I don’t think it has been adequately appreciated how significant it was that climate change ended up being put on top of the economic leaders’ meeting agenda.
The government also launched the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate in March and held a High Level Meeting on Forests and Climate in July. Just before the High Level Meeting on Forests and Climate, I tried to highlight to some of the people on the environmental group for which I was a volunteer, that APEC and the UN climate change meeting in Bali were an opportunity to get attention for the deforestation problem. They just ignored me. Perhaps Robert’s explanation demonstrates why. Environmental groups are constantly exhorting people to take action and lobby government for improvements. I have to say I would feel pretty aggrieved if it turned out they actually tried to sabotage positive initiatives because they didn’t like the shade of government.
I remember at the time of the forests meeting, I rang the Department of Environment to try and find out more about it. The chap I spoke to on the phone was quite cagey and frosty and it transpired he was worried I might be some sort of “sabotaging environmentalist” trying to get details that might be used to help disrupt the meeting. We continued our conversation and I think he eventually appreciated I wasn’t out to disrupt the meeting. Again, Robert’s explanation might explain why this department officer felt so wary of my enquiry.
This experience prompted me to fax a positive letter to Malcolm Turnbull about the promising possibilities of the GIFC, and included detailed questions about the global growth in palm oil consumption, the ironic use of palm oil in biodiesel, sustainability issues such as the viability of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and the impact of world population growth on the environment and palm oil consumption.
During APEC, plenty of people decried the Sydney Declaration. But it was the first time countries such as China, the US, Indonesia, Malaysia and Korea agreed on the goal of reducing global emissions. They also agreed on the aim to increase forest cover in APEC countries by at least 20 million hectares by 2020. I suggest developments at APEC in September were useful for the UN climate change meeting in Bali in December.
The cynicism towards Howard’s forest initiative is understandable, given Howard’s utterly atrocious record and the belief many had that Howard didn’t really believe in doing anything much on climate change all. Howard’s comments since losing office show such cynicism is well placed. However, just because someone’s (i.e. Howard’s) motives may be cyncial or not genuine does not automatically mean the policy is crap (although it is a good reason to scrutinise it extra closely for holes).
I think there is merit in using forest protection for the reasons Robert outlined (including quick gains), with the significant caveats that Robert also mentioned.
Personally, I think the elephant in the room (or the cow in the room) when it comes to quick gains in reducing greenhouse emissions which doesn’t get mentioned anywhere near as often as it should is livestock. Significantly reducing food consumption from animal products – and especially cattle – will make a significant dint in emissions, and because it will dramatically reduce methane, rather than just carbon, the impact will be felt much more quickly, becuase methane that it is already in the atmosphere disspates much more quickly than the carbon than it is already out there.
However, it seems getting people to call for reducing meat and dairy consumption is even less of a no-no than getting people to reduce their car usage. Achieving the necessary targets will be hard enough as it is, but if we keep ignoring areas where clear gains can be made just because its inconvenient or unpopular, we really aren’t going to have much chance.
Elizabeth Hart, what a strange way you have of looking at the world. In your eyes it is the environmental groups who are the problem, because they ‘try and stymie any positive initiatives’. Well, I’ve got news for you- it was the Howard government that had been in power for the past 11 years, not the environmental groups.
Apart from the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate (grand sounding name, but has it actually achieved anything in 12 months?) I would be surprised if the Howard government initiated any worthwhile environmental intiative over the past 11 years. But of course that would be all the fault of the environmental groups, not the said government.
The Sydney Declaration was a sham and everyone knew it. Even the Howard government propaganda machine didn’t bother, so deep was the odour eminating from it, no amount of perfumed spin would disguise its essentially flatulent nature.
As I mentioned earlier, I was stunned when the GIFC was announced. Whatever the reasons behind it, it was a fantastic opportunity.
Was the GIFC that plan announced by Malcolm Turnbull where Australia would pay large amounts to developing countries to preserve their rainforests, while completely IGNORING South-Eastern Australia’s continuing to clearfell and woodchip our own oldgrowth, including approving a humungous pulp mill, to be fed by ? Even if it gave sufficient compensation to the other countries in question, it was designed to make us look like complete hypocritical dickheads. Typical Howard government multitasking – trashing our last remnant forests and our overseas reputation in one go!
Brian. Yes, I suppose the cynics amongst us might suggest the Howard government was jumping on the climate change “gravy train” before the election. Others might see it as the government responding to concern from its electorate. Isn’t this a good thing?
Anyway, from my perspective, it almost seemed some people were willing the government’s initiatives to fail. It was very distressing to see the GIFC receive such little support. As I said earlier, when I entered into this I didn’t have any political agenda, I was just a “cleanskin” simply lobbying for the rainforests. My attitude changed as I watched developments throughout last year.
As for Labor, in my experience they appeared to be lacking in depth in the area of climate change that I was interested in, which surprised me given that climate change was always designated as their special province and they’re always very vocal about it. In my eyes, the political parties weren’t fitting their stereotypes. I sent two detailed letters to Peter Garrett (plus other shadow ministers) and didn’t even receive the courtesy of an acknowledgement letter. I received two letters from Kevin Rudd’s office in July and September, neither of which mentioned their me-too deforestation policy announced in May, although one letter did include a list of policies which was irrelevant to my enquiry.
I know there were climate sceptics in the Howard Government, the climate area is very complicated and there are lots of conflicting arguments. However, I think the Howard government’s Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was pretty dedicated, as is their current Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Greg Hunt. From my viewpoint, Peter Garrett was hopeless. This was amply demonstrated before the election when he indicated Labor would be willing to enter into a post-2012 climate change agreement without developing nations. Labor subsequently very quickly changed their position on this and came in to line with the Howard government’s stance.
I’m sorry if I sound like a full-blown cheer squad for the Howard government, but it’s a very small group at the moment. Yes, maybe the GIFC was an election ploy. Maybe John Howard is a climate change sceptic. But you know what? I don’t care. A unique opportunity came along last year that might have had a real benefit for the world’s forests (and reducing global emissions) and it was just too good to let pass by. It will be a real shame if Australia’s leadership on this issue is allowed to fall away. We particularly need to take action in the 2008-2012 period.
The UN COP 13 (Bali) decision re “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action”, encourages “Parties” to take immediate action to protect rainforests: http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_13/application/pdf/cp_redd.pdf
Australia got the ball rolling on this back in March, are we just going to drop out of leadership on this issue? We should be joining in an alliance with other like-minded countries to develop strategies to assist rainforests countries protect their rainforests, particularly for the 2008-2012 period.
Helen, to be fair, the situation in tropical rainforests and temperate eucalypt forests is not quite the same. You’ve got peat bog destruction, albedo issues (basically, how much radiant heat gets reflected straight back out into space), whether the forests are regrown or not, how fast that regrowth occurs, and so on and so forth.
As I understand it, the stats suggest that domestic forestry is not a major net carbon emitter.
Doesn’t mean I support the pulp mill, BTW. A regrown forest may hold just as much carbon as an old-growth one, but that doesn’t mean they’re identical…
adrian. I don’t think I have a strange way of looking at the world. Maybe I’m just a pragmatist.
I agree contrarian environmental groups are essential to get attention for the world’s problems. But it seems hypocritical to me if, as Robert suggests, they stymie or ignore government initiatives because they don’t like the shade of government.
A lot of people involved with environmental groups are volunteers. Many are also paid employees. Last year I spent a lot of my “spare” time researching and lobbying on this issue at the behest of environmental groups. I don’t appreciate the fact that my efforts were the equivalent of beating my head against a brick wall.
As for your comment has the GIFC actually achieved anything in 12 months? Here are the announcements that I am aware of: The Global Initiative on Forests and Climate; the High Level Meeting on Forests and Climate with participation by many international experts; the contribution to the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility; funding to improve systems for monitoring forests; funding for the management of forest and peat land fires; the $100 million Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership; the APEC Sydney Declaration goal to increase forest cover in APEC countries by at least 20 million hectares by 2020; Malcolm Turnbull’s promise to push for international action on the sustainable sourcing of palm oil at the Bali meeting; and John Howard’s pledge for orangutan conservation.
All of these developments served to raise the profile of the global deforestation problem.
Who knows what could be achieved if people really got behind it and tried to build momentum?
As for Labor, in my experience they appeared to be lacking in depth in the area of climate change that I was interested in, which surprised me given that climate change was always designated as their special province and they’re always very vocal about it. In my eyes, the political parties weren’t fitting their stereotypes.
Highly inaccurate!
You heard of a thing called the Labor Right?
Or a Ferguson?
Or the forestry wing of the CFMEU….
the stats suggest that domestic forestry is not a major net carbon emitter.
NAFI’s stats, perhaps?
I do not quite get your point that Indonesian forests are different from Australia’s forests. Of course they are. Our wet schlerophyll environments are unique and precious. The carbon sequestration part of it is only part of the picture.
Helen. The Rudd government is in power now. So we’ll have to wait and see what action they take on building on Australia’s existing leadership in addressing the problem of global deforestation. I’m interested to see more details re the PNG deal and what’s happening in Indonesia.
It’s also up to the new government to deal with the situation in Tasmania. Yes, it’s hard work when you’re in government trying to please everybody, but I wish them all the best and I will be the first to congratulate and support them if they build momentum on addressing the global deforestation issue.
Andrew Bartlett. The other elephant in the room is global human population growth. I wrote a letter to The Australian on this topic in response to the opinion piece by Vaclav Klaus on 12 March, and it was published today. (I also included a reference to the impact on deforestation…but sadly that was edited out). Here’s the link if you’re interested: “Population Alarm”: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/population_alarm/
No, through the Australian Greenhouse Office’s AGEIS system.
My point is that the effect on greenhouse gas levels, and, ultimately, climate, of logging in Tasmania and logging in Indonesia are probably not the same. As I understand it, the science tends to indicate logging in Indonesia is far worse for the global climate, both because of the nature of Indonesian wilderness (in a nutshell, there’s a lot more embodied carbon released) and the differences in forestry practices.
That doesn’t make logging in Tasmania a good idea – as you rightly say, they are a unique and precious resource. But that doesn’t automatically imply that logging them has an equal effect on the global climate as does logging in Indonesia and PNG.
I see what you mean now Robert. But we won’t make things any better by cutting them down. There is an unfortunate tendency among many commentators in the meeja to say well, we’re such a tiny population anything we do is a blip, so we may as well do nothing, in fact, mmm have some more brown coal!
The advantage to global climate change in not cutting down our own oldgrowth, is not so much in the extent of our oldgrowth but in not sending this “do as we say, not as we do”, message to Indonesia. Having this laudable initiative to help them keep their forests while actually subsidising our own woodchip industry is hardly calculated to garner respect and cooperation IMO.
AndrewB,
It is worth noting the correlation between livestock (methane plus) and land clearing (CO2 reduction minus), with Brazil of the past particularly noteworthy. But reducing grazing land in favour of rapid vegetation growth has a double tiered impact, now that you have made the point. Personally, and this is where Robert M and I diverge, I think that grazing land used for biofuel production in the developing countries is an important wealth redistribution step. When farming provides very real returns to poorer communities, and as oil climbs steeply upward this will become more powerful, there is a far greater certainty that these communities will have the flexibility to adjust their lifestyle in a way that the world community needs.
helen, helen, helen,
(Yep it’s me, the same guy from RTS, who you falsely accused of being a PR stooge for those nasty loggers).
Firstly, forestry is essentially a State issue, so the Federal government has limited capacity to tell state governments what to do, so neither Howard/Turnbull nor Rudd/Garrett have major influence over this issue. Their EPBC triggers are limited and given the information they had in front of them they could not have done anything other than approve the Gunns mill. Which is not to say that was the best policy outcome.
Secondly you’ve totally conflated clearfelling, a type of forestry operation that is typically (always in SE Aust) followed up with regeneration, with deforestation , which is turned into depauperate grazing land, or palm-oil plantations, in inadequately governed places like Brazil and Indonesia.
Thirdly, ‘last remnant forests’ is pure unadulterated crap. In Victoria less than 10% of public land or 3% of the total State is available for timber harvesting. Overwhelmingly our forests are ‘locked up’ in formal and informal reserves, which account for representativeness of biodiversity, and will never ever see a bulldozer. Some professional ecologists are suggesting that we need more forestry, since that’s the only way to be able to manage these landscapes.
Most of the harvestable forest is regrowth, very little is old growth. The amount of old growth forests in Victoria is INCREASING, right here and now, and the only threat to this position is mega-fires.
Ash forests, the most commercially valuable ones, have a biology that indicates replacement events, typically fires, and virtual monocultures as they outcompete other species. Fire frequency analysis suggests stand replacing events occur in a 60 – 100 year cycle, and that is probably best for the ‘natural’ cycle of these forests. Most of our timber is from the 1939 fires. If we were to stop all harvesting and to successfully suppress bushfires, allowing old growth to entirely predominate, this would be both an unnatural environment and be bad for quite a number of plant and animal species. The mosaic approach undertaken by modern forestry, while not perfect and still improving, is mimicking with increasing success the ‘natural’ cycles (which were often managed by Koories).
Now onto what happens with the carbon. Under global accounting rules, Australian LULUCF/forestry is a net sequesterer of carbon. It is true that OG forests have a lot of carbon stored in them, however they have stopped sequestering and are emitting methane as they rot, so are typically net emitters. Unless they’re rainforest, they’re basically sitting waiting to be burnt, since they’re fire adapted species. Regrowth forests are actively taking up carbon.
Harvesting will release a significant proportion of the carbon through the regen burn, but it needs to be remembered that these areas will inevitably burn anyway (if they are to be healthy and natural), and a proportion is taken away as timber, used for all sorts of good things, and fibre, for paper and manufactured wood products. This sequestered carbon does and will hang around, in houses and furniture, and in landfill (where paper doesn’t rot, it seems). This stored carbon currently isn’t accounted for but that’s just an accounting problem, not a physical one.
The burnt coupe will start regeneration as soon as the treatment occurs, and the actively growing trees will suck up lots of carbon, so when the forester comes back in 60 to 100 years, there will be just as much carbon there as there was before the last harvest. In the meantime, the timber will still be sitting in houses displacing steel, aluminium, concrete, glass etc as a building material, with excellent building properties.
So a sustainably managed forest is in eh scheme of things a definite positive for the climate change story. At the same time these multi-use forests are acting as water catchments, biodiversity reserves, recreational opportunities and sustaining many small regional towns.
I know you’ve read a book that says the CFMEU are evil, and I won’t dispute that, but they aren’t the timber industry, and the many evils ascribed to the timber industry are generally said in ignorance. We should all love our forests, and that includes the excellent carbon neutral products we get from them, as well as their many other utility and non-utility values.
`Fire frequency analysis suggests stand replacing events occur in a 60 – 100 year cycle, and that is probably best for the ‘natural’ cycle of these forests.’
wilful – check your data. No way that a species that grows to 100m or so would have such a short cycle. If your objective is to establish a ‘natural’ cycle, I’d suggest trebling the period you cite. And why is old growth ‘bad’?
TFA, isn’t wilful saying that a tree that is no longer actively growing is no longer removing carbon from the air? If you cut it and make a house out of it, then the carbon is stored there, making space for a new tree to grow.
Of course, as I suggested earlier you could turn the log into charcoal and bury it in the soil.
Elizabeth, perhaps you could lobby Tony Blair, who’s running around launching something called his ‘Breaking The Climate Deadlock’ initiative.
Also there is a meeting going on of the Gleneagles Dialogue in Japan, where the environment and energy ministers from the world’s 20 largest greenhouse gas emitting countries are having a chat under the auspices of the G8.
We are being represented by just one minister, Martin Ferguson, who I’m sure can do the work of two!
Brian, that is certainly part of wilful’s message, but there are risks in taking that message at face value.
Primarily, it implicitly assumes that the only reasonable objective in managing old growth forests is to maximise carbon sequestration. (wilful, I hope that I am not making too much of a caricature of your argument!) Old growth vegetation communities are relatively rare from a continental perspective, & I maintain that they are best managed to conserve what was once rather closer to the norm in Australia. I doubt, for instance, that one could find many Powerful Owls or Leadbetter’s possums in 60 year old E. regnans forests. See numerous papers by Lindenmeyer & Possingham for details and evidence.
Manage those forests to maximise carbon sequestration, and I’d guess that there’s an uncomfortably high probability that the owl & the possum would be lost from E. regnans communities. In the case of Leadbetter’s possum, that equates to extinction.
Re charcoal in soils, I’m not confident this would be successful in sandier soils. My understanding is that organic carbon will oxidise in soils which are well aerated ie the soil carbon goes to CO2 over a relatively short time frame.
Point taken, TFA. There will be pressures enough on species from climate change which we must be careful not to exacerbate.
Point taken about sandy soils also. I grew up in the brigalow belt and now live in the foothills of Mt Coot-tha in Brisneyland. Not much sand in either place.
completely OT
Brian – I too lived on the foothills of Mt Coot-tha until a couple of years ago. Lovely location; am enjoying current circumstance, but feeling somewhat nostalgic. Hard to replicate the suburban 3-metre python-in-your-cellar experience, not to mention backyard bush turkey mounds.
Unfortunately, never had a good look at the brigalow – my loss.
That’s amazing! We had a 3 metre carpet python who used to visit from time to time. It worked it’s way along Davies Road mopping up the vermin and then moving on. Mark knew it well when he stayed here in the 1990s.
Haven’t seen it for a few years. Possibly died of old age, possibly some idiot with a shovel…
Saw a small bush turkey in our front yard the other day.
Brian, you are correct, and I am certainly not suggesting that we should start logging old growth forests just for carbon sequestration purposes. So TFA, yeah that was a step further than I would be prepared to go. The extra carbon sitting in OG undergrowth takes a long time to fully resequester (more time than we’ve got). But harvesting in regrowth forests (which are structurally simpler) is unquestionably carbon positive.
I’m very familiar with David Lindenmayers and Hugh Possingham’s work. Not all, nor even a majority of regnans and delegatensis forests should be subjected to those sort of fire frequencies, but those forests that are certainly appear able handle it, while still contributing significantly to biodiversity conservation.
My purpose is merely to state that while old growth forests are certainly vitally important for biodiversity , they are only a seral stage and only part of the story. A fully old growth forest would not be a healthy forest, and would have reduced biodiversity. A fully regrowth forest would be worse, so the best outcome for forest health and vitality is a mosaic with all growth stages present.
My second point is that old growth forests are categorically not threatened by timber harvesting, and are in fact increasing in area. This is despite some highly misleading claims (lies) bandied about by some of the more irresponsible green groups (looking at you, Wilderness Society).
It all really comes back to the alternatives though. We dont chop down forests just for kicks, we make buildings out of them. Buildings that would otherwise be made of steel or concrete. And a tree chopped down in Victoria is a tree not imported from somewhere awful.
In a perfect world we’d get all of our timber from Australian plantations, but we’re a long way from that, and in the meantime, forestry is far lower impact than many other land use activities (farming, mining). It’s quite hard to come up with a short list of species that are directly threatened by logging as currently practised, it’s quite easy to come up with a long list of species threatened by farming and urban development.
Brian & wilful
On topic – One of the greatest obstacles to managing forests for carbon sequestration is the very limited understanding of belowground processes. Its very difficult and expensive to conduct research in this area, but fungal & microbial biomass is emerging as a large fraction of belowground C. But AFAIK little is known about how this C pool turns over, or how it varies between ecosystems, or how it responds to temperature, nutrients, soil moisture and so on.
Off topic – Brian, Brisbane is quite exceptional WRT urban wildlife, but I’m not sure that many Brisbanites realize their good fortune in this regard.
Unfortunately cars and urban pythons are not a happy combination. I saw a surprising number of roadkilled pythons along Toowong Tce, usually at the time of the year when they wander (Sept-Oct as I recall).
‘they are only a seral stage and only part of the story. A fully old growth forest would not be a healthy forest, and would have reduced biodiversity.’
Wilful, the Clementsian models of successional dynamics have been pretty much abandoned by plant ecologists in favour of the patch dynamics models of Pickett & White. Its pretty difficult to find any reference to seral or disclimax stages in the research literature of the last 30 years or so, with the possible exception of the Central European community classification school.
And what is your measure of ‘health’? Certainly the nutrient dynamics of old growth can differ considerably from younger stands, but is that necessarily unhealthy? I know we hear a lot of ecosystem ‘health’ etc, but I’m wary of such terms; they introduce a risk of moving from objectivity to subjectivity. And they can all too easily be manipulated to an end.
WRT biodiversity, the results may very well depend on what taxa are measured. You might be correct with regard to some parts of the biota while being incorrect with regard to others. For instance, I’d expect a far greater diversity among the decomposer communities in old growth.
Thanks for that link Brian. Yes, I might broaden my lobbying list on a global scale. Why pussyfoot around, just go straight to the top!
There was an article about Blair’s project in today’s Australian. This quote from Blair particularly hit a chord: “The fact of the matter is that if we do not take substantial action over the next two years, then by 2020 we will (be) thinking seriously about adaptation rather than prevention…” http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23375781-2703,00.html
In the link you sent to me with Tony Blair’s speech he says “we need a new global deal and at the heart of it there has got to be a substantial cut in emissions”.
Yes, we need “a new global deal”. I’m concerned that we’re focusing too much on the past constantly going on about Kyoto. Nearly every time Penny Wong opens her mouth, she tells us that Australia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Yes, I think we’ve got the symbolism out of the way. What happens now? Just another four years of talking until 2012?
I’m still one of those heretics wary of the Kyoto Protocol and agree with Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner’s argument that Kyoto “has stifled discussion of alternative policy approaches that could both combat climate change and adapt to its unavoidable consequences”. For example, protection for forests being left out for the past 10 years, even though the problem was highlighted many times. Now they’ve agreed to include it post-2012. What happens to forests between 2008 – 2012 whilst they’re talking about it? More meetings, meetings, meeting? At least the UN COP 13 (Bali) decision encourages parties to take immediate to protect rainforests so let’s hope they get on with it: “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action: http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_13/application/pdf/cp_redd.pdf
I agree with the US stance – there’s no point to an agreement that doesn’t include all the major emitters, including developing countries with super fast-growing economies and enormous populations. Perhaps the US refusing to ratify gives them more leverage with China?
Here’s a couple of quotes from Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner, “Time to ditch Kyoto” article: Nature 449, 973-975 (25 October 2007) relevant to your comment about the “Gleneagles Dialogue” chat…
“Focus mitigation efforts on the big emitters – The notion that emissions mitigation is a global commons problem, requiring consensus among more than 170 countries, lies at the heart of the Kyoto approach. Engaging all of the world’s governments has the ring of idealistic symmetry (matching global threat with universal response, but the more parties there are to any negotiations, the lower the common denominator for agreement – as has been the case under Kyoto.”
In September (2007) the United States convened the top 16 polluters. Such initiatives are summarily dismissed by Kyoto’s true believers, who see them as diversions rather than necessary first steps. However, these approaches begin to recognise the reality that fewer than 20 countries are responsible for about 80% of the world’s emissions. In the early stages of emissions mitigation policy, the other 150 countries only get in the way.”
TFA, I think we are in violent agreement, you are merely stating things differently, perhaps misunderstanding my point.
Isn’t that exactly my point, restated? Structural diversity comes from a variety of age classes across the forest. We want neither all OG nor all regrowth, but a happy medium, catering for a wide variety. Health is a loose term true, referring to capacity to maintain the usual assemblage of species in the landscape.
We dont chop down forests just for kicks, we make buildings out of them. Buildings that would otherwise be made of steel or concrete. And a tree chopped down in Victoria is a tree not imported from somewhere awful.
In a perfect world we’d get all of our timber from Australian plantations, but we’re a long way from that, and in the meantime, forestry is far lower impact than many other land use activities (farming, mining)….
And you’ve claimed elsewhere that you’re the reliable oracle on all this (recognisable forestry industry talking point boilerplate) because you’ve had involvement with the industry. I take that to mean “affiliated with the industry, either in some peak body or a commercial company”.
How many builder/developers are framing their houses , or city buildings, using Eucalyptus Regnans these days? Really!
It goes to woodchips, and you know it.
No helen, all I’ve said is that I know a bit more than reading one book on the matter.
As to your question, the answer is lots. Go past any woodframed house, you’ll see the subfloor and the lintels made of australian hardwood. And what are floorboards made of? Beautiful stuff, worlds best timber.
Of course woodchips are a byproduct – but have you used paper in recent days? What exactly is so evil about woodchips? Increasingly, they’re able to be used for manufactured timber products as well.
When sawlogs are going for ~$200/m3 and residue for $50/m3, the market tells us what is really wanted.
wilful, on re-reading #52 I’ll grant you that we may not be in quite the disagreement that I first thought, but I don’t think our positions are as close as you imply in #56.
You explicitly claimed that old growth forest has lower biodiversity. Not so, I claim, unless you wish to cherry-pick the types of organisms that are counted towards your measure of biodiversity.
You also claimed that old growth forest was ‘unhealthy’ – a contestable statement in my view and one whose scientific validity is compromised by the large subjective component in deciding whether a given aspect of an ecosystem is ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’.
And how do you determine the capacity to maintain the usual assemblage of species in a landscape in the absence of observations of that usual assembly? Does the absence of part of that assembly actually mean that the landscape cannot support them? Can you definitively exclude alternative explanations for the absence of those species? Can you even be certain that the methods used to assess species presence/absence have not produced false negatives?
It seems to me that you may be misinterpreting the Possingham model for maximising landscape-level biodiversity by creating a mosaic of patches with differing disturbance regimes. It is not correct to interpret that model as saying that old growth is inherently inferior or unhealthy. Recall too that the main paper explicating the mosaic model was focussed on the xeric heathlands of Ngarkat NP. This is an ecosystem where successional dynamics occurs over decades (as well as being a region where fires from lightning strikes are a frequent event), whereas the analogous dynamics in E regnans forests occur over much longer timeframes.
Elizabeth, you really should read Guy Pearse’s High and Dry or Clive Hamilton’s Scorcher to get a proper perspective on the Howard Government’s attitude to climate change. He really was, for most of his time and arguably to the end, making sure that the fossil fuel polluters would suffer the minimum discomfort. Much of his climate change program was tokenism and gimmicks to give the impression he cared.
Right to the end much of what he said was blatant, actual lies. For example, he constantly boasted that we would meet our Kyoto targets:
Pearse points out (p100) that 31 of 35 countries signing up to Kyoto are expected to meet their targets, while the EU as a whole is expected to exceed them by 2010.
If the EU succeeds in this it will be the first significant block of countries to cap emissions and to start the graph on a downward trajectory. It will be because they took Kyoto seriously.
I didn’t read Prins and Raynor because it is ‘pay for view’ but I did read John Quiggin’s post which saw it as unhelpful to say the least, basically a Bush booster. And of the US Administration he says this:
I have said that there could be value in Bush’s meetings of major emitters, and at the last one there did at least seem to be some plain talking, but trust is difficult to establish given their record.
Meanwhile the EU have decided on burden sharing in their plan to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 levels and now have agreed to enact legislation early in 2009.
Everyone knows that the developing countries need to come on board. I think you’ll find that the Europeans are talking about contraction and convergence with a target carbon budget based on population while the Americans are saying let everyone make up their own goals, which was what John Howard was on about.
Let me stress that while Kyoto, a protocol of the UNFCCC, had it’s limitations it was the only game in town if you want to have a regime eventually that has teeth, where countries can’t dishonour their commitments without penalty.
Bush’s bash may eventually make a contribution, but there is little doubt that it was originally intended to subvert the UN process.
On another matter, Andrew Bartlett at #31 talked about the problems of too many livestock running around. He’s right.
If, as Garnaut suggests, we need to reduce emissions by 90% we need to be aware that livestock currently account for 11% (2005) of emissions. Our forestry emissions are not differentiated from land use and land use change, but the so-called LULUCF sector accounts for 6%. We need to turn that sector into a negative emitter.
Off topic, I’ve seen scrub turkeys in Spring Hill within a kilometre of the CBD. Many of us do appreciate the urban wildlife, but the BCC is not helpful. It wants to clean up every overgrown gully and increase the density of dwellings generally, leaving wildlife to behave themselves properly on designated reserves.
Elizabeth, good on you for lobbying without party-political affiliation. I’m inclined to believe Turnbull, if he hadn’t had the Howard government’s decade of stonewalling to deal with, would have been quite an effective environment minister. I am all too ready, also, to believe that as a minister and a local member he knows how to listen to his constituency — Garrett has been a relative disappointment in that regard; one wonders if he doesn’t get just so much disappointed fan mail that he has given up repying.
But I do wish you wouldn’t keep repeating the propaganda claim that the Sydney Declaration last year was the “first time” major emitters like the US and China formally agreed that reducing emissions was a good idea. It wasn’t. The first time was at the Rio conference in 1992, when the UNFCCC was established.
It wasn’t until Kyoto five years later that it was agreed that “developing nations” like China were to be exempted from the first round of binding emissions targets, and only in 2000 that petulant Bush and Howard backed off from ratification (and thus from being bound themselves to their own modest, easily-achievable targets) with this as an excuse.
The Sydney Declaration brought the American and Australian leaders to the same forward-looking but uncommitted positions their predecessors had held 15 years earlier.
Guy Pearse reminds us that one of John Hewson’s election promises in 1993 was to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from 1990 levels — not by 2020, but by 2000:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Election-2007/20071116-Andrew-Peacock-was-a-greenie.html
There is no doubt that this target, though ambitious, would have been achievable despite Robert’s “war footing” comments above.
So really, I don’t blame your greenie friends’ hostility to the Howard government, or their reluctance to endorse publicly a small positive announcement for fear that it would help greenwash the government’s appaling record of diplomatic sabotage and domestic inaction.
Wilful, you really are incredibly patronising to imply that just because I have reviewed one book on my blog, that means that is the only book or article on the topic I hav e ever read. It is exhausting to engage with you, because the strawmen and prepared talking points just keep on coming, most of them specious (What i s the problem with woodchips? Well, take our taxes away from the industry and let’s see how they do in an un-propped-up situation), but I’m just off to an awful family gathering and don’t have the time. I suppose you’ll spin that as meek acceptance..
Brian. Re your comment: “Everyone knows that the developing countries need to come on board.” I don’t think everybody knew that last year, e.g. Peter Garrett.
As for George Bush and the US, here’s some quotes from an interview with Tony Blair in The Guardian “It has to be politically doable”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/14/greenpolitics.tonyblair
When Tony Blair was asked
Cathy Zoi, Chief Executive of the Coalition for Climate Contol (US) gave same more background on the US procedure in an interview with Tony Jones on Lateline on 10 March: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2185688.htm
Here’s some more quotes from The Guardian article:
Here’s another article: “Major emitters” tag upsets poor nations at G20 talks
I’ve pulled out some quotes: http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnSP86019.html
And I’ve pulled out some quotes from the Tony Blair speech. The emphasis is mine. http://tonyblairoffice.org/2008/03/tony-blair-speech-to-gleneagle.html
So our old growth forest are increasing? Which planet are you on Wilful? They are still being logged in Victoria, Tasmania and SE NSW, at a great rate. Granted, there is a lot less than there was, but they are still decreasing. The only forest that is actually “locked up” is logging coops – you are not allowed to “trespass” on them. You could do better than copy text from NAFI media releases.
Australian old growth forests clear felled and burnt using current practices liberate up to 1400-1700 tonnes of carbon per hectare. IF left untouched it would be over 100 years before the forest sequestered half that amount of carbon. Trouble is, logging & burning rotations are 40-60 years . . . so they never will
Good on PM Rudd for taking action on protecting PNG forests. As ours are equally deserving, I hope Labor doesn’t subscribe to the Howard government hypocrisy of pretending otherwise. Garnaut’s report will hopefully point this out free from industry spin.
In the entire history of Australia’s logging and woodchipping industry, not one single 300 year tree has been replaced, but tens of thousands have been destroyed, and still are. It is the crime of the century; the perpetrators should be gaoled.
Elizabeth, Blair is a politician (still) who has to deal with the likes of Bush, so he’s always going to massage his ego if that’s what it takes.
Blair did give a high priority to climate change and made it a major agenda item at the 2005 Gleneagles G8. But the G8 has a terrible reputation for talking pretty and then doing nothing. I’m sure that’s why they set up the Gleneagles Dialogue, or G20 in this context (there are at least two other G20s), which has been so active that I didn’t know it existed until a couple of days ago.
The 2006 G8 was in Russia and is mainly remembered for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dfrHT8o-0A ” rel=”nofollow”>Bush grabbing Angela Merkel’s shoulders from behind when he passed her chair, and Bush’s conversation with Blair which was simplified to Yo, Blair.
Angela Merkel’s G8 last year was designed to get their noses back into all the stuff they’d spruiked about and hadn’t done anything about. She was the one who sat Bush down on the Sunday before the meeting and persuaded him to respect the UN process with his breakaway group. And not to wreck her meeting.
He behaved, sort of, but didn’t commit to targets, only to consider them seriously.
Of course Peter Garrett knew that developing countries would have to adopt targets sooner or later. But he also knew that the developed countries had to show leadership. The whole incident to which you refer is more complex than is generally understood. In the MSM Lenore Taylor in the Fin Review was the only one smart enough to work it out. I wrote about it last year and much else besides that I won’t repeat. I’ve reread it and still agree with what I said then, except I misfired in attacking the Greens.
I’ll just emphasise the point I made that the Least Developed countries, after their experiences in the World Trade Organisation will want to have their own say. They simply won’t accept India, Brazil etc representing their interests.
One of the problems is that there has been much emphasis on cuts in emissions and not enough on the acceptance that some countries will legitimately need to increase their emissions. Targets based on ‘contraction and convergence’ can also involve increased emissions for some. This is effectively what the Europeans are doing (scroll down to find the guidelines table for member states) where Eastern European countries are allowed increases of up to 20%.
xoddam. I have a rather different perspective to you and others on this blog re APEC and the Sydney Declaration. Here’s the perspective of an “ordinary person” who had no political agenda when she started her campaign other than to lobby for the protection of rainforests…
Throughout last year I lobbied the government to take action on the problem of rampant deforestation in SE Asia, particularly the destruction of rainforest to accommodate oil palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia. APEC was the important focus of my letter-writing campaign. Since APEC was being held in Australia last year, it offered a perfect opportunity to request action on the problem of rainforest destruction in our region, particularly as the UN climate change meeting was being held in Indonesia in December.
On 31 January 2007, I made a submission on the Department of Forestry Bringing Down the Axe on Illegal Logging Discussion paper. In this submission I requested that:
In this submission I also argued that:
On 14 March 2007 I sent a letter based on my submission on the Bringing Down the Axe paper to government ministers (John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Alexander Downer and Warren Truss). Again, I asked for support for our neighbouring APEC rainforest countries and again asked for the issue to be put on the APEC agenda. (In the interests of bi-partisanship, I also sent a similar letter to shadow ministers Kevin Rudd, Peter Garrett, Robert McClelland, Simon Crean and Kerry O’Brien. I didn’t specifically mention the APEC agenda in the shadow ministers’ letter, as they weren’t in a position to set the agenda).
On 29 March I saw a story on the front page of The Australian – “PM’s plan to rescue the world’s forests”. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was like winning the lottery. Talk of a global fund for forests had been knocking around for years but hadn’t really gotten off the ground. The Stern Review (October 2006) suggested that the international community should compensate developing countries to protect their dwindling forests. This suggestion was reiterated at a UNFCCC “Workshop on reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries” held in Cairns in March 2007. I’ve also got a reference to the idea of a global forest fund going back to March 2002: http://www.mtc.com.my/news/pr37.htm
It was beyond my wildest dreams that Australia would pick up the gauntlet on this issue. I don’t know if my letters and submission had any impact on the government, perhaps there was all sorts of lobbying by others going on behind the scenes, I don’t know. I do know that Nicholas Stern was in Jakarta around that time and I think subsequently came to Australia. So perhaps it was a politically opportune time to make such an announcement. Whatever. I was just thrilled that the GIFC had been launched. Here was a fantastic opportunity to place the issue of forest protection in the international spotlight.
From my viewpoint, this initiative should have been applauded by conservationists of all political persuasions. Taking a big picture view, here was a chance to really talk up the problems facing the world’s forests and push it for all it was worth. Naturally, reservations could have been mentioned re problems re certification of illegal timber and deforestation in Australia. And of course the cynics amongst us would say this was simply a Coalition electioneering stunt, an opportunity to latch onto the Stern gravy train. But so what? That’s politics. That’s how things get done.
I believe this initiative deserved a bi-partisan, non-parochial and generally positive and proactive response. Instead, the negative, or at best luke-warm response, seemed to threaten the very idea of the Global Fund to protect forests. We were treated to the following headlines: “Greens slam PM over forest funds”, (The Age, SMH, ABC News Online, 29 March). “Axe taken to forest initiative…Green groups have savaged John Howard’s plan to spend $200 million to protect forests in developing nations” (The Australian, 30 March).
There was a lot of “get your own house in order”. Fair enough there are a lot of contentious issues, and $200 million in the global scheme of things isn’t very much. Nevertheless, here was the government acknowledging that global forest protection is an important issue and wanting to do something about it. I believe green groups should have been more positive and proactive and tried to build on this initiative. Of course, as Robert has suggested, perhaps the “wrong” party came up with this initiative. At the time I wondered if the so-called greenies simply couldn’t bring themselves to talk up any positive initiative from the Howard government, even if it did concern protection of the world’s forests?
For me, the issue was far too important to be used as a political football and I wrote a letter to all the major newspapers supporting the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. The Sydney Morning Herald published my letter on 3 April 2007 under the title: “Global forest fund critics can’t see the good for the politics”. In this letter I argued that:
A couple of months later I started receiving letters from the Ministers’ departments I had written to outlining the action they were going to take re the GIFC etc.
Just before the High Level Meeting on Forests and Climate in July, I faxed another letter to Malcolm Turnbull. My letter to Turnbull raised questions about the global growth in the consumption of palm oil, the ironic use of palm oil in biodiesel, sustainability issues including the viability of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and the impact of world population growth on the environment and consumption of palm oil. In the introduction part of my letter I included the following paragraphs:
I received responses to my fax from the Department of Environment in July and August, which outlined the government’s progress in this area and signed off with the sentence:
As I mentioned previously, in my original letter to government ministers, I had asked that the issue of deforestation be put on the APEC agenda. On 31 March 2007, John Howard had announced that the topic of climate change was going to be on top of the agenda of the economic leaders’ meeting. The Global Initiative on Forests and Climate was also mentioned in his media release. As the issue of climate change had been put on the economic leaders’ meeting agenda, I was obviously hopeful that the issue of deforestation would be addressed. In my letter to Malcolm Turnbull dated 21 July I included the following paragraph:
As APEC approached, I decided to send another letter to government ministers and I faxed a letter to John Howard, copied to Malcolm Turnbull and Alexander Downer. In this letter dated 4 September, I hoped:
I also included the following paragraphs:
Whilst APEC was on it was very dispiriting to see the negative criticism it attracted. It was embarrassing to watch really. The focus seemed to be on Sydneysiders’ annoyance at the unavoidable disruption, despite the fact the most famous city in Australia was hosting a prestigious VIP meeting and this gave us the opportunity to showcase Sydney and Australia to the world. The media really seemed to enjoy playing up this negative angle. The coverage of APEC on ABC TV was just woeful. They seemed more intent on doing cross-promotion for the Chaser than covering the serious issues, although at least the Indonesian deforestation issue did get a mention on Lateline. Yes, the Chaser security break-through was a bit of a blunder, and there was also the Liberal leadership distraction. (I relied on The Australian for more in-depth analysis of APEC).
Again, I was moved to write to the newspapers in support of the opportunities of APEC. An edited version of my letter was published in The Age on 8 September 2007 under the title: “Climate opportunity not to be wasted” and the full version was published in the Financial Review on 10 September 2007 under the title: “APEC a rare opportunity and challenge”. (I wrote quite a few other letters last year on the forests issue and a new global climate change agreement which didn’t get published, but it doesn’t hurt to try and get attention for an issue. At least the Letters Editor reads them).
As we know, APEC resulted in the Sydney Declaration which included:
Of course the Sydney Declaration was greeted with derision, surprise, surprise. I wrote yet another letter to the newspapers arguing that “Climate change consensus among world leaders is the major achievement of APEC Australia 2007”. The Age published my letter on 11 September 2007 under the title: “Consensus is a victory”.
During this time it would not be an exaggeration to say that I felt I was the only person in Australia willing to wholeheartedly support the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate and the possibilities of APEC. I’d campaigned throughout the year from an APEC angle, and seemed to be sabotaged at every turn.
I know I was just one of a lot of people and organizations trying to get recognition for the deforestation problem. But I didn’t have any political agenda when I started lobbying, other than campaigning for the forests, although obviously I became rather more enamoured of the Howard government because they launched the GIFC. Perhaps I looked at things from a different perspective…
I’ve continued with my letter-writing campaign, and have written further detailed letters to Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong before and after the Bali meeting. I am also writing letters to Greg Hunt.
Considering my campaigning had focused on an APEC angle, perhaps you can appreciate my distress at the negative reaction to the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate and the APEC Sydney Declaration?
I’m not sure about the carbon trading/PNG angle, and I’m not sure what it means for the period 2008 – 2012, whilst the protection of forests still rests outside the Kyoto Protocol. At least The UN COP 13 (Bali) decision re “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action”, encourages “Parties” to take immediate action to protect rainforests: http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_13/application/pdf/cp_redd.pdf
Perhaps the Howard Government launched the GIFC for a whole lot of sinister reasons, I don’t know. And I don’t care. I think it was great that they did launch it, as it raised the profile of the global deforestation issue.
I’ve got the distinct feeling that the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate might be allowed to fall in a heap. And of course there’s been a lot of talk recently re government spending cuts in the upcoming budget.
Australia got the ball rolling on this issue last year, it would be a real shame if we just got left behind. We should really be trying to make this work and joining into a focussed alliance with other likeminded countries to assist rainforest countries protect their forests during the period 2008-2012.
Yes, we’ve got to decrease our own domestic emissions. But helping to decrease global deforestation by assisting rainforest countries could make a real dent in global emissions.
Elizabeth, protecting forests globally is a very important strategy for mitigating climate change, as recognised by both the Howard and Rudd governments. It is quick and easy to do, and has immediate impact on reducing emissions. The problem is, we need to protect our own remaining old growth and high conservation forests for exactly the same reason. The old adage about “getting your own house in order before you preach to others” applies. Global protection of forests means Australia too.
Yes, not only from the practical point of view, but for the message it sends to countries in the asian region, i.e. not looking like bloody hypocrites, which would result in the ultimate failure of the GIFC due to non compliance.
Oh I thought this thread had fied.
Sorry for being patronising helen, but equally, why must you insist that I am some stooge for the industry, scouring through the internets as part of some dastardly plan? As for ’spinning meek acceptance’ you were the first one to try that one, only one day after I posted over at RTS.
If I’m raising straw men, please set them alight. That would be all they deserve. Which woodchips are government subsidised (over and above any rural/primary industries subsidy) ?
peterc, I’m sorry, you don’t know what I’m talking about – the areas of mature forest that are currently gaining the attributes of old growth are substantially greater than the areas of current old growth that will ever be available for harvest. Therefore, the area of OG is increasing. That’s just a simple fact.
My use of the term ‘locked up’ was ironic, however there are certainly far more restrictions on activity in National Parks than there are in State forest. You are NOT excluded from State forest, except for the brief period when harvesting is under way – this is for the bloody obvious reason that these forests are unsafe – people die regularly. For the other 99 years, you’re perfectly welcome to go there. If you want to have a look while harvesting is under way, there are community days, such as EPA audits, that you are welcome to participate in.
We don’t have 40 year rotations. Most of our industry for the past several years and next many are into the 1939 Ash regrowth, which is coming up for 70 years. No we haven’t replaced 300 year old trees, I’m sure you could work out why that is.
Several conservation groups (including the Greens political party) wish to end native forest harvesting in Australia. This is a policy that will directly and unequivocally increase global carbon emissions. So Elizabeth as I said right at the start, your favoured global forestry initiative is a great thing, as long as it doesn’t attract baggage domestically for all the wrong reasons.
TFA, I’m sorry, I don’t know where I said that OG has less biodiversity. I certainly did not mean to say that anywhere. What I thought I said was that an entirely OG forest would have less biodiversity than one that had patches of a variety of ages. A proportion of OG is acknowledged as crucial for biodiversity. And OG forests aren’t ‘unhealthy’, but ‘less healthy’ in that they’re less able to reflect the ‘normal’ assemblage. A pure OG forest would be unnatural, as would a pure regrowth forest. Although ash forests, which typically are dominated by stand-replacing events, would overall appear to be mostly regrowth (but more structurally complex, because more stags typically survive natural fire than harvesting regeneration fire – variable retention harvesting research is working through where this can be improved).
Getting into debates over what is normal, and how we determine that through modelling and sampling and all those techniques is a thread diversion. Of course our information is inadequate, it always will be.
Peterc. I’m glad you recognise “protecting forests globally is a very important strategy for mitigating climate change”.
Thank you also to wilful for acknowledging that my “favoured global forestry initiative is a great thing”.
Lots of people in Australia are engaged in the debate on Tasmanian forests. However, it’s rather lonely over here in my corner.
I’ll keep focusing my energies on promoting the promising possibilities of the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate.
Why does everyone think Elizabeth Hart is promoting GIFC as a diversion from protecting forests in Australia? And why does Elizabeth Hart think that everyone else has something against GIFC?
I am definitely going mental. I cannot discern the subtext at all! I can see the personality clash. But that’s not what this is about, is it?
No, I was saying that while the Australians don’t protect their own forests (especially in the SE), the GIFC is (1) hypocritical and (2) less effective than it would be if the Australians were seen to be cleaning up their own back yard, practicing what they preach and any other cliches I can think up.
I’m just a bit bemused that EH would support it so wholeheartedly, but I haven’t questioned her right to do so. If she is supporting it and agitating for SE Australia to be brought into its ambit, then that would be very valuable. (Thinks: time for another letter to an MP… but those form letter pretend replies they send back are so annoying…)
And the other point is that these things cannot be taken out of context. The fact that Howard proposed this scheme does mean something, we have good reason to be extremely cynical about yesterday’s rodent.
helen, a word of (sincere, friendly) advice – try writing to the parliamentary secretary instead. You’ve a much better chance of having the actual pollie or his/her close adviser read it rather than just having it spat straight to the bureaucracy.
I am wondering whether GIFC is in Penny Wong’s portfolio, whereas our own forests is clearly Peter Garrett’s.
I think Elizabeth has been narrowly focussed on the problem of global forests. There is nothing wrong with that. But she is clearly chiding us for not falling in behind the Howard initiative and cheering his achievement in APEC.
Most of the rest of us have been viewing Howard from a different frame of reference, one entirely justified by his actions over a long period of time. My point is that the blame for lack of support for Howard’s global forest initiative can properly be sheeted home to Howard himself, for his cynicism, his political pragmatism and his lack of getting the groundwork right before launching it.
I think it also needs to be understood in Garrett’s vs Turnbull’s response that Turnbull last year had more minders to do his business and it’s doubtful whether he gave her lobbying, or anyone else’s more than a nanosecond of attention. That’s no reason not to do it, especially if Elizabeth’s letters are supported by others in a manner that is not part of a pro forma campaign initiative. (Hope there are not too many negatives in that sentence.)
This thread is suffering from a bad dose of industry spin and some ill cast nasturtiums.
Facts Wilful? Exactly which forests do you think are “currently gaining the attributes of old growth”? And what is your creative definition of old growth?
All forests outside of existing National Parks and SPZs (whose protected status may actually be revoked!) are subject to logging rotations, so they can NEVER “gain OG status”
Remaining old growth forests are still being logged in Tasmania, SE NSW (nearly all gone) and East Gipplsland, so their area in Australia is still DECREASING (obviously).
There are no restictions on national parks that lock up forests to the public. The loggers and woodchipppers are the only ones locked out! Sorry you find this to be a problem.
You do have 40 year rotations – you should be honest about this. Particularly as forest quallity diminishes under a punitive logging regime, which is the reasons you log Melbourne’s water catchments too. At least you admit you haven’t replaced any 300 year old trees, you are on the road to enlightenment.
Your claims about NGOs and Greens “wishing to end native forest harvesting” are simply not true. For example, none of TWS, ACF, WWF or Australian Greens have this policy – you should read their policies rather than spreading lies.
What does ” A pure OG forest would be unnatural” mean? Huh?
Your lingo gives you away as an industry (or pro industry government) operative. Face the facts dude; logging old growth forests is bad for climate change, bad for our future, bad for water, bad for biodiversity and really shouldn’t be happening – either here or overseas.
Old growth: “Old-growth forest is forest which contains significant amounts of its oldest growth stage – usually senescing trees – in the upper stratum and has been subject to any disturbance, the effect of which is now negligible.”
Like der fred. But why are you excluding over 90% of Victoria’s forests from the picture??? And of course SPZs can be revoked, but only if they do not contain the values they are meant to have. There’s not much logic in protecting large owl habitat if there aren’t any large owls around, is there? Chances are however, that the SPZs you can find today are the same ones you’ll find in 20 or 50 years.
Back onto old growth – The area of mature forests that are not in the senescent stage, but will be in the medium term future, and that are subject to minimal or no human disturbance, is significantly larger than the area of old growth that may possibly be logged in the future. Hence, it’s a very simple bit of logic to say that the area of old growth in increasing. This really is forest dynamics 101.
There are many restrictions on activities in national parks. Camping is only in restricted areas. No mining, no prospecting, no horse riding except as part of a licenced group. No dog walking. No hunting. Significantly restricted access, with many roads closed. No firewood collection. Limited beekeeping. All of these things are much harder or illegal to do in NPs than State forest.
(I am not advocating any of these things, merely pointing out your errors).
peterc, as I have explained, we are chiefly harvesting 1939 regrowth. I’ll let you explain how an event 69 years ago is a 40 year rotation. Gosh you’re not getting the 300 year thing – when did Europeans arrive in Australia?? Hint: we had a Bicentenary only a little while back.
here’s the Australian Greens policy, direct cut and paste from their website today:
It requires no interpretation to see what this means. The Greens want small volumes in limited areas for specialty purposes. That does not and cannot equal an industry. You cannot say I am misinterpreting that. Any more lies you want me to quash peterc?
I’ve already explained this to TFA above, who appears to know something about the ecology forest dynamics, so I’ll refer you to previous answers, but I’ll try again for your sake. Please excuse any oversimplifications, TFA and anyone else, I’m keeping this simple.
When europeans arrived in our forests, they were not faced with pure old growth forests, but a patchy forest that was
a) mostly managed by koories, and
b) the definition of ‘healthy’ as we currently know it.
Ash forests are dominated by stand replacing events. Major wildfires occur likely on a frequency of 60 – 100 years (this still a research area, but that’s the best indication currently), which turn significant areas of mature (or OG) forest into regrowth. Old growth disappears this way. Fire (like harvesting) is patchy, and rainforest for example has persisted since gondwana despite the threat of bushfire, but only a moderate proportion of forest would have been what we now call ‘old growth’. This structural diversity and complexity allowed a ‘healthy forest’ to provide for all species.
We now suppress wildfires, and the key disturbance regime in small parts of the forest is timber harvesting. It’s quite possible, likely even, that in 50 to 100 years the healthiest forests in providing for biodiversity will be managed (harvested) State forests, and there will be too much old growth in our reserve system. The species that require disturbance events will not be able to regenerate, and will disappear. Quite possibly a degree of harvesting or other manipulation will be wanted in our National Parks. of course, in the meantime they’re mostly still recovering from previous harvesting so we don’t quite know yet.
But to get back to the essential points. Timber harvesting occurs over less than 3% of Victoria. Compared to agriculture, urban development, etc it is responsible for basically no impacts. The list of threatened biodiversity from current timber harvesting is very very short, it basically begins and ends with Leadbeaters (which is driven by the ‘39 fire more than anything). Sawlogs are used to build houses. These houses would otherwise be built from either concrete or imported timber. The list of species threatened by climate change is very very long. Any moves to close down the industry will cause global emissions to rise, as well as unnecessarily putting lots of regional Australians out of work (though I’m sure the inner urban types that are the most ardent forest protesters care deeply about that).
Even if I am deep in the logging industry (which I’m not, but it’s irrelevant), in what way does that invalidate anything I have said? If my arguments are so weak you would have honed in on the multiple fallacies, instead you’ve skirted around them, I have attempted to address every point you’ve raised to the best of my knowledge. I don’t claim infallibility and I don’t claim that this industry is perfect. But given the alternatives, you’ve not offered anything, anything at all – you haven’t even tried to tell me plantations exist for hardwood sawlogs (that’s always good for a laugh).
Brian and wilful. Brian – we’ll have to agree to disagree re Kyoto and Garrett. And yes Brian, the GIFC is now in Penny Wong’s portfolio. And yes, I admit I have been “narrowly focused on the problem of global forests”. I don’t have time for anything else. This isn’t my “job”. I don’t have any “minders” helping me. It takes a lot of time to research the issues, try and keep up with developments, write letters to ministers and shadow ministers, write letters to newspapers, post on blogs etc. I’m fortunate I work part-time, but I’ve got other commitments too.
I’ve been involved with this issue since September 2006 when I volunteered for an action group and started off by investigating the importation of palm oil into Australia, checked out the situation re labelling of palm oil with FSANZ, investigated “eco-labelling”, discovered there was an opportunity to make a submission on the Bringing Down the Axe on Illegal Logging discussion paper, and (along with other volunteers, particularly another woman in Victoria who has also been very active in lobbying politicians and submitting a proposal for palm oil labelling), surveyed nearly 100 companies re the use of palm oil in their products, plus writing letters etc.
I’ve been following this issue for 19 months so far. I’ve done a teensy bit more than just pick up a “pro-forma campaign letter” at a supermarket demo and pop it into the post to a politician. I have been lobbying in a “positive” fashion, but I have had to spend an extraordinary amount of my time, throughout last year and this year, defending the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. I didn’t bargain on this when I started, and I’m obviously not happy about having to spend my time this way.
Are you lobbying on any particular issue Brian? If you are, you will know how time-consuming it can be. Imagine how you would feel if it seemed others were trying to sabotage your efforts.
As for Turnbull and Garrett? I don’t know if Turnbull or some “minder” took any particular notice of all my correspondence, but I asked for global support for SE Asian rainforests, and for the problem of tropical deforestation to be put on the APEC agenda. And I was happy when the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate was launched, and when climate change was put on the APEC agenda. I received detailed and informative responses from all the ministers’ departments.
I didn’t get any useful response from any of the shadow ministers. Given that they were the “alternative government”, and seen to be the “leaders on climate change”, I was surprised at their poor response and wondered about their competency.
Last year, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting provided a fantastic opportunity for our region’s leaders to discuss climate change on a formal and informal basis. (How many international leaders were at the Bali meeting, other than Kevin Rudd?) Of course I had been looking forward to APEC and I was bitterly disappointed at all the negative and petty criticism surrounding it. Yes, it appears I have a different viewpoint from most (all?) other people on this blog, but it would be a boring old world if we all thought the same…
Anyway, the point is…Howard has gone. We now have the Rudd Government for the next three years. We will be looking to them to take action in future on climate change and everything else. They are the ones who will be participating in negotiations for a post-2012 climate change agreement on our behalf.
Given the importance of addressing global deforestation to cut global emissions, I hope they will continue to build on Australia’s global forests initiative. I hope focused international action will be taken to protect forests between 2008 – 2012. I will be looking forward to a progress report at the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.
wbb and Helen. I respect Helen’s point of view, she is concerned about forests in Australia. She’s focused on that. I’m focused on deforestation in SE Asia because the problem there is really dire, great swathes of rainforest and associated bio-diversity are being destroyed.
I have admitted previously that I am a relative newcomer to this issue and I have a lot to learn. I’ve avoided looking too much into the Australian forestry debate as lots of people are already involved in that argument. But I realise there are complicated economic and conservation issues to consider. As there are in Indonesia.
Anyway, I’m completely inundated with information about the tropical deforestation problem, particularly before, during and after the Bali meeting, and I’m battling to stay on top of that.
If you’ve read all of my previous posts, you will see I’ve been frustrated by the politics at play in this issue. With Robert’s assistance, I’ve outlined my feelings on this previously, so I won’t go over it again. The important point is, rainforest destruction is rampant in Indonesia. Due to clearance for logging and oil palm plantations, Indonesia’s forests are being destroyed at a staggering rate, amounting to almost two million hectares per year. Indonesia is now the world’s third worst greenhouse gas emitter due to deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires. And of course, as a developing country, Indonesia is not bound to meet emission targets under Kyoto.
This problem needs to be urgently addressed because a recent report suggests that 98% of Indonesian rainforest may be destroyed by 2022. (Ref: The Last Stand of the Orangutan. State of Emergency: Illegal Logging, Fire and Palm Oil in Indonesia’s National Parks, Feb 2007, p. 6)
Here’s an example of a perverse outcome of Kyoto. To meet its Kyoto obligations, the European Union (EU) is trying to decrease its emissions by using biofuels in vehicles. Ironically, whilst the EU is trying to decrease its emissions by using “green” biofuels including palm oil, Indonesia’s emissions are increasing, due to rampant destruction of rainforest to accommodate oil palm plantations.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Kyoto actually excluded a mechanism to protect old growth forests. Sure, there were contentious issues to consider, but it’s taken 10 long years to get this anomaly addressed, and it’s still not fixed because forest protection won’t be included until post-2012. In the meantime, we have to take action outside Kyoto to protect forests. What’s going to happen to rainforests between 2008 – 2012? That’s why I’m supportive of a “Global Rainforest Recovery Plan” for the period 2008 – 2012. I believe there should be bi-partisan agreement and urgent action on this issue.
wbb and Helen. Further to my last post. Please see below the text of the first letter I sent to Malcolm Turnbull and other government ministers and shadow ministers last year. Sorry, I know it makes for another rather long post from me, but given the topic is tropical deforestation and emissions, I thought it might provide some useful general background:
First letter to Malcolm Turnbull and other government ministers and shadow ministers, 14 March 2007:
I am writing to you as Minister for the Environment and Water Resources and representative of APEC to register my concern about rampant deforestation in SE Asia and its devastating impact on the environment and climate change. It is vital that the Australian Government, along with the rest of the international community, participate in promoting sustainable forest and plantation management practices which will protect the remaining precious tropical rainforest from further destruction.
This matter is directly relevant to APEC members. I ask you to advise me of the Department of the Environment and Water Resources’ stance on this important regional issue. I also request that this issue be put on the agenda for APEC Australia 2007.
Along with illegal logging, the expansion of oil palm and timber plantations has been identified as the driving force of SE Asian rainforest destruction. Alarmingly, the international community continues to support this destruction with its increasing demand for timber and palm oil products from this region. Palm oil is used in everything from bakery products and margarine to detergents and cosmetics. As palm oil is often labeled as simply “vegetable oil”, it is impossible for consumers to know the product they are purchasing could be contributing to the rapid annihilation of SE Asia’s unique rainforests and animals. When we do our weekly shopping we are unwittingly fueling a phenomenal growth in demand for a crop that is leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
And the demand for palm oil is set to expand dramatically given its ironic potential as a “biofuel”. The drive for “green energy” in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. Unrestrained biofuel expansion will accelerate, not slow down, climate change as rainforests and peatlands are converted to energy crop monocultures and release their carbon in the process. In promoting palm oil as a biofuel, we are creating a market for the most destructive crop on earth. Recently a new biodiesel plant has opened in Darwin. Most of the palm oil it will use for its biodiesel is being imported from SE Asia. Australia should ban the import of a product which is grown at the expense of rainforests, and which contributes more to greenhouse emissions than it saves.
Oil palm plantations destroy bio-diversity and are associated with human rights violations and worker exploitation. Millions of hectares of rainforest in Borneo, Sumatra and Malaysia have been cleared to accommodate oil palm plantations. Even the famous Tanjung Putting national park in Kalimantan is being destroyed by illegal logging and clearance for oil palm plantations.
Often companies log virgin rainforest under the guise of planting oil palm only to disappear once the forest is cleared for timber. Consequently, huge areas of already logged land lie wasted and unused and still companies log more rainforest.
Companies are now turning to peat swamp forests, the preferred home of the orangutan, one of man’s closest relatives. Peatlands store more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Millions of hectares of peatland rainforests are being logged and drained, particularly for oil palm and pulpwood plantations. The situation is exacerbated by annual peat fires covering millions of hectares. This leads to huge emissions of carbon dioxide fuelling the greenhouse effect. It is estimated that the great forest fires in Indonesia of 1997-1998 resulted in carbon emissions equivalent to 40 percent of all emissions from burning fossil fuels in the world that year.
Indonesia is now considered one of the major carbon polluters on the planet.
The rampant deforestation associated with the spread of oil palm plantations has had a devastating effect on animal species. The orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhino, Asian elephant and numerous other species are threatened with functional extinction in the wild within the next ten years if nothing is done to curb destruction of the rainforest.
Current “sustainable practices” are meagre. For example, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) promises to “promote the growth and use of sustainable palm”. Unfortunately, the RSPO is a relatively new and voluntary organisation and has yet to implement the criteria by which oil palm plantations will be deemed sustainable. Even more serious, the RSPO has not determined how the criteria will be enforced or monitored. The problems over how to police the criteria, once established, are huge.
Due to the significant deleterious impact of the production of palm oil on the environment, I believe a more formal, non-voluntary, government-run accreditation process for the production of palm oil is required to ensure that remaining rainforest areas are protected.
The Australian Government, and the rest of the international community, should play an active role in assisting the Indonesian and Malaysian Governments protect their remaining rainforests. As noted in the recent Stern Review, “the loss of natural forests around the world contributes more to global emissions each year than the transport sector. Curbing deforestation is a highly cost-effective way to reduce emissions”. (The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change – Part VI International Collective Action: 25. Reversing Emissions from Land Use Change provides more information on this topic).
The protection of the world’s remaining rainforests is a global responsibility and we must all be willing to contribute. I urgently request that the Australian Government act upon this important issue. In particular, I urge the Australian Government to insist on the following:
As well as raising this issue at regional forestry forums, I request that the critical issue of SE Asian rainforest destruction and its disastrous impact on the environment be placed on the agenda for APEC 2007.
Wilful #77:
Even if I am deep in the logging industry (which I’m not, but it’s irrelevant), in what way does that invalidate anything I have said? If my arguments are so weak you would have honed in on the multiple fallacies, instead you’ve skirted around them,
Gosh it’s amazing that someone not employed in the industry would be so excercised by criticism of it and so well across the talking points which come up from the industry with monotonous regularity. Unlike, say, schools, most people do not identify with a commercial industry or display all this insider lingo without some connection with the industry itself. OK, just colour me unconvinced.
To say I’ve “skirted around” your assertions: Look, I’ve answered some directly, but again, you’re employing the rhetorical internet trick of claiming that because someone hasn’t the time to fisk every. single. one of your talking points, I haven’t any reply for them (as I predicted in my last comment above!) I simply haven’t the time and I assume most of the readers of this blog have heard these talking points before – especially that egregious nonsense about old growth forest being “senescent” and not valuable in any way – and have some knowledge themselves.
But given the alternatives, you’ve not offered anything, anything at all – you haven’t even tried to tell me plantations exist for hardwood sawlogs (that’s always good for a laugh).
I have given the alternatives. Plantation timber, recycling, substitution, and if all that isn’t quite enough, reducing our damn consumption, which is metaphorically off the planet. I know you’ll never accept those solutions because they are deeply opposed to the growth-at-any-cost core of the prevailing ideology.
If you were a timber worker, would you rather have intermittent, dangerous work on steep terrain knocking over old growth with bulldozers and chainsaws, continually moving to different sites and worrying about which coup[e you’re going to be allotted next year, or would you rather have year-in, year-out work in a plantation – safer and involving growing the stuff as well as cutting it down?
(Off topic now…)
Oh yeah I forgot-
you haven’t even tried to tell me plantations exist for hardwood sawlogs (that’s always good for a laugh
Spotted gum and plenty of it. But not in the SE states. That’s because QLD and WA did the right thing a while ago, while Vic, NSW and Tas have continued on their merry way propping up the native forest industry.
Wow. You haven’t read a thing I’ve written have you?
OK, ta for now.
Wilful, how come you have strayed so far off the topic – about forests and climate change? Pumping out tired industry propaganda and lies really is a bit boring.
Also, why are you unable answer the question about exactly which forests you think are “becoming old growth”?
You are wrong about SPZs – their status is at the whim of the Government – any of them could be released for destruction at any time.
Cutting through the revealing industry jargon on what you think old growth is – forests that have never been logged are old growth.
I think it is just fine that National Parks are protected by not allowing mining, prospecting, dogs, hunting, limited horse riding, limited 4WDs etc. They are created to preserve the natural qualities of the region after all. The point is – they are not locked up. Anyone can walk in and enjoy them.
Your claim about “chiefly harvesting 1939 regrowth” is bollocks. This applies to the Central Highlands and some North East forests – but much of East Gippsland’s extensive forests.
Gosh you’re really not getting the 300 year thing – when did you replace an old growth forest with a tree that age (or older) in it? You haven’t yet and never will!
Thanks for quoting the Greens policy that proves the error of you previous assertion about “the Greens want to stop all native forest logging”. Clearly they don’t (nor any of the NGOs).
Well yes, I can actually, and I do. You are, quite deliberately, with weasel words.
More weasel words. Your attempts to obfuscate and confuse are a bit too transparent.
Then you waffle on about suppressing wildfires, key disturbance regimes, managed (harvested) State forests, too much old growth in our reserve system, species that require disturbance events (like being run over by a bulldozer?) and that a degree of harvesting or other manipulation will be wanted in our National Parks. Straight of the Woodchipping 101 manual dude.
Here are some facts you left out:
* Of the 950,000 Ha of old growth, water catchment and high conservation value forests identified in 2006, the Brack’s Government committed to “protect the last significant stands of Victoria’s old growth forests currently available for logging” – 41,000 Ha only. None of this is yet protected; it is taking a long time to deliver this election promise . . .
* Threatened species due to logging include the Spotted Tree Frog and Baw Baw Frog, Spot-tailed Quoll, Long-footed Potoroo, Sooty, Powerful, Masked, and Barking Owls, Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Leadbeaters Possum, Yellow Bellied Glider, Galaxias, Orbost Spiny Crayfish and Strzelecki Burrowing Crayfish.
* VicForests just reported that 85% of “production from native forest” in 2007 was very low value woodchips.
* About 2% of “production from native forest” ends up as furniture grade timber – so woodchips are the main game – mostly exported from Eden and Geelong, or used by Paperlynx to create paper
* Houses are built from plantation softwood these days, not hardwood.
* John Brumby promised to end this insanity in 1995, now we are waiting for him to deliver.
Protecting old growth and high conservation value forest is the quickest and easiest thing we can do to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions. That is what trees do – they sequester carbon – up to 1700 tonnes per hectare for old growth.
But you don’t really want to talk about that do you?
Here is the link for the Brumby forest protest speech video circa 1995. It is interesting viewing:
Link
peterc, this is crazy/absurd. I’m giving up with you as well. I have provided the definition of old growth, I have said what mature forests are, you, just like helen, refuse to either read what I type or process it. You don’t know a thing about forest dynamics, or the RFA process, you’ve never been near a building site, you’re just making crap up, this is a big waste of time. Glad you’re so happy in your ignorance.
OK, keep it polite, please.
Wilful, I have read and processed your views about “mature forests” and explained whey I reject your assertions; they simply are not supported by facts. RFAs don’t even take carbon emissions into consideration!
Over 80% of Australians want all their remaining high conservation value forests protected; it is simply astounding that Victorian, NSW, and Tasmanian State Labor governments, and now the Rudd federal Labor government, continue to sanction their destruction, mostly for low value woodchips, like previous Liberal governments have.
This highlights a serious flaw in our political system – industry lobbyists and unions such as the CFMEU do backroom deals with a succession of state and federal governments to allow this lunacy to continue – just read the Wielangta court proceedings.
I think its game over when carbon emissions are seriously measured; protecting remaining old growth forests is one of the quickest, easiest and cheapest ways we can reduce our carbon emissions; both home and abroad.
“peterc, this is crazy/absurd. I’m giving up with you as well. I have provided the definition of old growth, I have said what mature forests are…”
Trouble is, wilful, your definitions are definitions that have not been shared by the research community for several decades, nor are they consistent with empirical evidence. In particular, you seem intent upon introducing subjective anthropocentric metrics of ‘health’ into the debate here and passing them off as being objectively scientific. They are not.
Your portrayal of old growth forests as ’senescent’ is another example: it is an argument that can only be sustained if the sole management objective is to maximise log production on a per annum and a per unit area basis. There are numerous other biological/ecological flaws in your argument, and I do not think it is at all helpful for you to accuse me of ‘thread diversion’ for pointing out that the premises of your proposition lack scientific support.
Wilful,
I think your timing and understanding of forest cycles is way too brief. Most of our forests are highly depleted in vertebrates because they have been logged and are short on suitable habitat. I have slept outdoors in old growth forest that had a soundtrack like a Hollywood jungle and been showered in pellets from flying marsupials. In most modern Australian wet sclerophyll forests that have been logged the best you’ll hear are a few crickets and find a bushrat if you’re lucky.
Pre-European cores suggest fire frequencies of 200-400 years in these forests. However, only a couple of studies have looked at this in detail and much more research is needed. Palaeo-ecologists make this recommendation constantly, because there is so much argument based on so little evidence.
To suggest that logging the ‘39 regrowth, when it’s just getting to the top of the water depletion curve is somehow ecologically beneficial is stretching it a bit. The timber might be useful, but it’s not great for forest ecology. Interestingly, the 39 fires had a hydrological effect on streamflow that was similar in magnitude to the effect from the dry 1930s and 40s to wet 50s and 60s. I have observed this effect in hydrological models and it is striking. You don’t get good water yields out of short cycle Ash forests or plantations. Hollows do not start to form until about 70 years and survey data suggests the big feed trees for many arboreal critters are hundreds of years. (Leadbeaters use a mix of old and young tree feeders f’r instance)
Friends of mine have been involved in post fire ecology surveys. Forestry (State) was actively involved in giving them misleading coupe infromation, wrong locations and being obstructive at all times. If it is all hunky dory, why would one branch of government actively mislead another?
Income in Victoria from unprocessed timber (forestry logs) in 2005-06 was $112 million, in the Gippsland and East Gippsland statistical divisions $6.5 and $8.4 million respectively. Sure, there is value adding worth heaps more, but that value add is not sensitive to the source, whereas the forestry is.
Environmentally, clearfell is destructive. There ain’t no other way to look at it, and to pretend the evidence suggests otherwise is dissembling. My personal preference is, that if we have to mess about in forests, selective logging on long cycles, max value timber. The more destructive activities I reckon should be seen as suitable for plantations only and managed appropriately.
As a climate scientist, I can’t find benefits from clearfell per se, but if we increase our forest/plantation estate, then fantastic.
As for tropical forests, the carbon budgets in their loss is frightening given the attendant risks. However, EH, this excellent initiative does not excuse the many shortcomings of the previous mob re climate. This was one of the lowest hanging of the low hanging fruit that was generally left unpicked (oh, and clearing in Queensland).
TFA, the definition of old growth that I provided is the current official one. Take it up with government (who are advised by the research community) if you disagree. It is definitively not one that is decades out of date, it is current. This leads me to question your expertise in this area. Senescent is from the definition. Depending on your EVC, it is relevant to measures of ‘health’. Of course health is a label, it’s a shorthand for a suite of objective measures. There are healthy and unhealthy forests, and yes professional ecologists talk in this manner. Maybe not in published papers, but in discussion about these issues, categorically they do.
I’ve not introduced an anthropocentric focus. The concept of health certainly does not direct us towards a pro-human/’productive’ forest. It’s quite well accepted that logging produces impacts. But given what we know, in the landscape scale and compared to the current alternative management regime (‘do nothing’) in the reserve system, logging approaches natural cycles of disturbance.
“Thread diversion” is not an accusation in a negative sense, not sure why you’d be touchy about that.
Roger, again I cant keep apologising for making a few reasonable shorthands in my arguments. Time is too brief, we can’t type here all day every day. But the thrust is correct.
While fire frequency does need more research, I’ve seen quite different figures kicked about, much shorter ones.
Roger, I’ve been camping in lots of areas that have been logged i the last 20 years, and there’s a lot of life in them. So my anecdote is as good as yours. Perhaps more relevantly, forestry occurs across a grand total of 3% of the landscape, in a patchwork, and is not considered responsible for ongoing species depletion apart from a few recently discovered species (eg baw baw frog). And hollows are provided for at a range of densities. Research continues – this is certainly an area for
Of course clearfell is destructive. But not really. What is permanently lost? Anything at all? Where’s the evidence otherwise? Surely it would be a simple act to show clearly and unambiguously, with recourse to cliches and emotive words, precisely what damage forestry is doing? It’s a simple proposition, and the responsibility is on the accuser to prove that the current activity isn’t sustainable.
I still can’t get why woodchips are so bad. 85% (!!!!) (actually less, but doens’t matter). Do we say that a wheat crop was only 10% grain, 90% straw (!!!), or a gold mine 0.0001% gold. Etc etc.
The industry-sponsored government definitions of “old growth” are confusing and not particularly relevant. This is a deliberate tactic – using semantics to justify the unjustiable and confuse people. You use the “don’t you worry about, we experts are the only ones who know what we are talking about” modus operandi.
Have a read of the Wikipedia definition: Link
Dude, Australia is over 80% desert, your 3% is a meaningless figure- be honest and tell us the total percentage of Australia’s remaining forest cover, and how much of that is HCV/old growth. Then tell us how much of THAT is being logged . . . Hint: any amount of HCV/old growth logging is too much.
The global picture on forest destruction is not too pretty either:
Link
Oh really? This is why Dr David Lindenmeyer’s research has indicated that the short logging rotations in Leadbeaters Possum forest habitat is putting increased pressure on their survival because it removes all hollows they need for nesting?
Wilful, you are a fact free zone, and notably silent on this blog post topic about forest protection as a means of addressing climate change.
They won’t. They’ll source a diesel engine from Europe drop it in.
Show me a Commodore-sized car that gets 4.5L/100km and I’ll buy it! 4.5L/100km is what an ultra-efficient Euro micro-diesel achieves.
Carbonsink: diesels make much less difference to CO2 emissions than people think.
While they use a lot less fuel, part of that is due to the fact that the fuel is denser – and thus more carbon-intensive – than petrol. The savings in CO2 emissions tend to be about 17%.
Furthermore, unless they’re fitted with the latest particulate filters, they’re a major loss for local air quality. Particulates are the silent killers in our society.
Roger
It amuses me that everybody on this blog qualifies their support for the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate with a little sideways dig at “the previous mob”.
Anyway, I’m glad you said the initiative was “excellent”.
As for your comment that the GIFC was “the lowest hanging of the low hanging fruit”, well that’s easy to say in hindsight. Back in March 2007, how many other countries had taken up the gauntlet on the problem of global deforestation and offered to donate $200 million to the cause?
Whatever your thoughts on the previous government, they did launch an initiative that has the potential to make a real reduction in emissions, particularly if we focus on the future and increase momentum and funding for the period 2008-2012.
And whilst on the forests and the environment, it’s not just about emissions. The US Census Bureau indicates our population is going to increase from 6.6 billion today to around 9 billion by 2042. http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopinfo.html
I wonder how the forests and environment are gong to fare under this pressure?
It’s interesting how graphs can be constructed to give different impressions. On world population, try this one, or if you really want a fright this one.
To be frank, Elizabeth, this is getting a bit tiresome. The Australian Conservation Foundation before the last election analysed the party policies on sustainability and gave the Coalition 22% with an improvement of just 1% during the campaign. Labor was given 60% with an improvement of 11.
Howard’s lot were a mob of dunderheads and earned all the swipes they got. They didn’t just fail, they have been sent off to remedial class to get their heads on straight. I don’t recall the exact figures, but the Climate Institute gave similar marks on climate change.
Your problem is that you see everything through the prism of the forest. On the magic chart hydrocarbon emissions account for over 61% whereas forests account for about 18% with agriculture most of the rest. It’s like a candidate in an exam does OK on one question but makes a complete hash of the rest worth over 80% of the marks.
Also there is no such thing as an apolitical stance. If you fly with the crows you get shot at with the crows, as a once-famous politician said.
I think this will be my last comment on this thread.
Forget it peterc, I’ve provided all the facts here, you’ve lied or obfuscated or refused reality at every point (such as Greens policy, increasing OG forest, definition of OG). And not bothered to read what I’ve typed (such as about climate change). No more for you.
Eye-catching graph Brian. (The second link didn’t work).
Sorry to be so “tiresome”. You accuse me of seeing “everything through the prism of the forest”. I understood this blog was about “rainforests and emissions-shifting”, so it seemed an appropriate forum in which to focus on forests.
Your problem is that you simply don’t get my point (or don’t want to). I’ll stick with my favoured subject, and focus on the future and promoting something that might have positive practical outcomes.
I’m concerned about what will happen to rainforests in the period 2008 – 2012.
The report Last Stand of the Orangutans suggests that 98% of Indonesian rainforest may be destroyed by 2022. The report argues that “At current rates of intrusion into national parks, it is likely that many protected areas will already be severely degraded in three to five years, that is by 2012.” p. 6, http://www.unep-wcmc.org/resources/PDFs/LastStand/orangutanreport_1to11.pdf
Two more recent reports How the Palm Oil Industry is Cooking the Climate: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/cooking-the-climate-full
and Deforestation, Forest Degradation, Biodiversity Loss and CO2 Emissions in Riau, Sumatra, Indonesia: http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildplaces/borneo/updates/riau_co2_report__wwf_id_27feb08_en_lr_.pdf
also provide more background on deforestation in Indonesia.
On a global scale, the Stern Review notes:
There was an article by Ziggy Switkowski in The Australian yesterday: Greenhouse deals ‘beat carbon trading’: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23426799-27703,00.html
I wrote a letter in response to Switkowski’s article and it was published in The Australian today: “We should offer neighbours more help to protect forests”: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/we_should_offer_neighbours_more_help_to_protect_forests/
Anyway, just trying to add another perspective to the debate…
Elizabeth, first up I believe your comments have been going to the spaminator, probably because they have a lot of links in them. You have to wait for one of us to fish them out or email us. If you repost it simply goes to the spaminator again.
I’ve re-inserted my second link. I have a practice of testing my links after posting so I don’t know what happened. If it breaks again it was simply a graph showing world polulation for the last 8000 years. The graph barely lifts from the bottom line, but in the last few hundred years it shoots almost vertically up the page. It looks like a rectangle with a coloured border along the bottom and up the right hand side.
I think it’s a case of there you go again with Ziggy. Certainly forests are a worry, no-one is denying that, and one that should be addressed urgently, but to suggest we concentrate on PNG forests and forget energy emissions is nutsoid.
Also to suggest that we do nothing because we are so small is a path to certain ruin.
I don’t want to say more because I’ll be repeating myself.
Mmmm, I wondered what was going on. I suppose there were a lot of links in that last post…
Re your comments Brian:
Have I said this? I don’t think so. (Refer to my comment # 22). I’m not quite sure why you keep insisting this is an either / or proposition? I’m focusing on the forests angle on this “rainforests and emissions-savings” blog. I’m sure there are plenty of other people to promote other avenues of emissions savings.
As is obvious from my posts, I’m a keen defender of the GIFC. From my viewpoint, the launch of the GIFC last March was met with knee-jerk derision or apathy and little appreciation of the possibilities it offered. It seemed to me some people just couldn’t bear to support this initiative, or even debate it in a reasonable manner, simply because it was a “Howard government” initiative. I think it was short-sighted and unfair, not to mention hypocritical, to damn a promising initiative on this basis.
I’ve come to accept over the past year of frustration that some people are entrenched in their position and that is that. That’s their prerogative. But I’m fed up with the petty political point-scoring. I believe the GIFC is a good initiative, regardless of which political party launched it, and I will continue to persevere and support it.
I’ve recently sent another letter to Kevin Rudd, copied to Brendan Nelson, Penny Wong, Greg Hunt and Bob Brown, requesting bipartisan action on this issue. (Thanks for the link to the Tony Blair speech Brian, that gave me some inspiration.) I’ll also forward the letter as a submission to the Garnaut Review.
I wonder if there will actually be any action on this issue, or will it just be talked about for the next four years?
For info, here are some Key Messages from the Stern Review re deforestation: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/9/5/Chapter_25_Reversing_Emissions_from_Land_Use_Change.pdf
Curbing deforestation is a highly cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and has the potential to offer significant reductions fairly quickly. It also helps preserve biodiversity and protect soil and water quality. Encouraging new forests, and enhancing the potential of soils to store carbon, offer further opportunities to reverse emissions from land use change.
Policies on deforestation should be shaped and led by the nation where the forests stand but there should be strong help from the international community, which benefits from their actions.
At a national level, establishing and enforcing clear property rights to forestland, and determining the rights and responsibilities of landowners, communities and loggers, is key to effective forest management. This should involve local communities, and take account of their interests and social structures, work with development goals and reinforce the process of protecting the forests.
Compensation from the international community should be provided and take account of the opportunity costs of alternative uses of the land, the costs of administering and enforcing protection, and managing the transition. Research carried out for this report indicates that the opportunity cost of forest protection in 8 countries responsible for 70 per cent of emissions from land use could be around $5 billion annually, initially, although over time marginal costs would rise.
Carbon markets could play an important role in providing such incentives in the longer term. But there are short-term risks of de-stabilising the crucial process of building strong carbon markets if deforestation is integrated without agreements that increase demand for emissions reductions, and an understanding of the scale of transfers likely to be involved.
Action to preserve the remaining areas of natural forest is urgent. Large-scale pilot schemes are required to explore effective approaches to combining national action and international support.
Brian – re population. That second link still didn’t work for me. Comes up with the message: “Directory has no index”
I’m just starting to read up on population info. This article might be a few years old, but is quite interesting: World Population: Major Trends: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Papers/gkh1/chap1.htm
You are right about the link. It’s weird. I fixed it, tested it several times, it worked but now it doesn’t.
Re Switkowski, no you didn’t say that and strictly speaking I didn’t say you did. I was commenting on his ideas. But by linking to him with seeming approval it seemed you did agree with him.
FWIW I’ve got no hassles with the GIFC as far as it goes, but I don’t follow this with approval of Howard’s APEC initiative as a whole or condemnation of the Kyoto Protocal.
As is obvious from my posts, I’m a keen defender of the GIFC. From my viewpoint, the launch of the GIFC last March was met with knee-jerk derision or apathy and little appreciation of the possibilities it offered. It seemed to me some people just couldn’t bear to support this initiative, or even debate it in a reasonable manner, simply because it was a “Howard government” initiative. I think it was short-sighted and unfair, not to mention hypocritical, to damn a promising initiative on this basis.
Elizabeth, I know I’ve said this a few times before, but it doesn’t make sense to try to encourage other governments to retain their old-growth forest cover while woodchipping our own. To use an analogy, it’s like trying to get your neighbour to clean up his front yard while mine is full of old car bodies and thistles. THAT was my objection to the GIFC, not kneejerk anti-Howardism (although the previous government’s track record did add an extra layer of suspicion re. their motives – genuine change, or being seen to be doing something without putting any Australian big business’s profits in jeopardy?)
It smacks of making the other guy do the hard yards. And if there was all this money to buy out the Indonesian/PNG foresters, what about buying out the woodchipping industry in SE Australia and putting more money into the plantation forest industry?
Helen, what you say is spot on. Politicians actions can never be considered apart from the general context of their other policies. Howard had severe credibiity problems, well-earned, and it had to affect the reception of any worthwhile initiatives internationally, all the more so because his failure to clean up his own back yard indicated hypocrisy.
Helen, I understand what you’re saying. My point is that the situation in countries like Indonesia is quite dire and urgent, as I’ve tried to highlight in my previous posts.
Naturally I thought it was fantastic when Australia acknowledged this problem and launched the GIFC. I understand there are issues in Australia, but I was stunned at the negative reaction from the “greenies”, it seemed like the whole idea of the GIFC was under threat.
It’s been interesting to read the comments by wilful, TFA, peterc etc on this blog.
Why isn’t protection of old-growth forests in developed countries being included in some way in the new climate change agreement?
There’s an interesting report in Nature, Save the trees, which says “although the Bali declarations endorse the idea of including forest protection in the next climate agreement, they say nothing about which avenue to take – an issue that is now being hotly debated.” (Jeff Tollefson (2008). Save the trees. Nature Vol 452 | 6 March 2008). Apparently the Europeans are a bit dodgy on forestry credits because they could flood the market and they want to ban them from their market until 2020. Instead, they propose funnelling a portion of the proceeds from the carbon market into deforestation programs.
Here’s a couple of links to papers that discuss avoided deforestation:
A New Initiative to Use Carbon Trading for Tropical Forest Conservation: http://www.globalcanopy.org/themedia/NewCarbonTrading.pdf
Avoided Deforestation as a Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Tool: Economic Issues for Consideration: http://www-agecon.ag.ohio-state.edu/people/sohngen.1/forests/AvoidedDeforestation_v5post.pdf
Brian
I’m glad you acknowledge that “forests are a worry, no-one is denying that, and one that should be addressed urgently” and that you’ve “got no hassles with the GIFC”.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree re APEC and Kyoto. We’re looking to the future now…
Speaking of which, did you know Norway is increasing its support to prevent deforestation in developing countries to more than US$500 million per year? Norway’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg made the announcement at the Bali meeting last December.
Norway’s Minister of the Environment and International Development, Erik Solheim, said that “an initiative in this area in the next few years can bring about substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions while the world is seeking to put in place a new, more comprehensive agreement on climate change”. http://www.norway.org/policy/environment/avskoging_eng.htm
It would be great if more world leaders could show the same commitment and form an alliance to address deforestation during the period 2008-2012.
Maybe Kevin Rudd could raise this topic when he meets world leaders on his trip.
I’m not sure whether you mentioned REDD earlier, but I just googled it and came up with this item on why the EU torpedoed it at its January meeting after ready acceptance at Bali.
There was also an interesting article in the March 22 issue of the New Scientist which I bought in the newsagent yesterday. It mentioned the difficulty in rewarding only the bad guys, the difficulties in monitoring any scheme and the possibilities for corruption. I suspect it was for reasons such as these that the issue was left out of Kyoto.
The latest issue has a positive story but again the good guy gets nothing.
Brian. That Mongabay link is a summary of the report in Nature, “Save the trees”, I mentioned in my previous post #106.
Re REDD. I’ve mentioned the Bali climate change meeting Decision 2/CP.13 Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action in some earlier posts. Here’s an updated link: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2007/cop13/eng/06a01.pdf#page=8
Thanks for the link to that 22 March article in the New Scientist “Save the climate by saving the forests”. I hadn’t seen that one. Here’s a link to the whole article: http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95327
It gives a good summary of the problems. As you say, protection of forests was left out of Kyoto because they found it too hard to address back then. And of course, as so many people tell us, Kyoto was “the only game in town”, so when forests were left out of this global agreement I don’t think it sent a very good message.
I’d argue that Kyoto exacerbated the vulnerability of the forests. How’s this for a perverse outcome – the EU is trying to decrease its emissions by using “green” biofuels including palm oil, while Indonesia’s emissions are increasing, due to rampant destruction of rainforest to accommodate oil palm plantations. And of course, as a “developing country”, Indonesia doesn’t have an emissions target under Kyoto. See this article in The Guardian for an update re biofuels: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/25/biofuels.energy1
The problems are still hard, but now they’ve finally decided to consider forests (in developing countries) for inclusion in the post-2012 climate change agreement after all. But as Jeff Tolleson points out in the Nature “Save the trees” report, the way that forests will be protected is “being hotly debated”. Wonder how long it will take them to sort it out?
Now, after all those years of inaction, they’re encouraging Parties to take action to prevent deforestation outside the Kyoto Protocol (refer to link above re Decision 2/CP 13). After all those wasted years and ruined forests… I wonder how much more forest will be lost over the next four years, whilst people are engaged in “dialogue” etc? I wonder if there will be any forests left by the time they get it sorted to their satisfaction?
Kyoto has not been a winner for the forests.
No wonder I take notice when Prins and Rayner argue: (Time to ditch Kyoto: Nature 449, 973-975 (25 October 2007)
Going back to the “Save the climate by saving the forests” article, here’s the really striking problem:
The “economic drivers of deforestation”… Continuous, growing demand. It’s not just about emissions, it’s about sustainability. We’re already under pressure now with 6.6 billion people. How are we going to cope when we’ve got over 9 billion in another 30 odd years?
There’s a UN climate change meeting on in Bangkok at the moment.
What do you think about this Helen?
Talks start on halting global warming, 31 March 2008: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-app/reports?ARCHIV=0&LANG=en&JJ=2008&MM=03&TT=31&MENU=Topics&FILE=b2.txt
The quote implies that Greenpeace thinks Australia, Canada and NZ should stop protecting forests in favour of other measures. If true, that would be very silly of them, but I imagine what Greenpeace are saying is that it would be a bad thing to substitute – that’s the key word – using other peoples’ forests as Carbon sinks for taking any action whatever on cutting fossil fuel reliance, in other words choosing it on an either/or basis. I would think that their position would be that both are necessary. However, I’m not a member of Greenpeace or a regular reader of their web site so this is my assumption.
At the risk of stimulating an avalanche of verbose postings, I would like to state a few things:
1. woodchipping is NOT a by-product of sawlogging. In the Eden region, over 95% of timber felled is chipped.
2. In both NSW and Victoria, the native forest woodchipping industry is subsidised by State governments.
3. Australia has enough plantation hardwood available right now to replace all native forest woodchip exports and domestic markets right now, without planting a another tree.
4. Australia looks set to adopt a greenhouse emissions reporting system that will double count much of the CO2 uptake from forestry, but export the emissions.
For those interested, Victoria is also having another talkfest/summit this week on Climate Change.
100 community leaders/business sorts will be there and there’ll be opportunity to contribute online and see a webcast. discussion papers will also be released.
http://www.climatechange.vic.gov.au/summit/index.html
Word, Harriett.
Here’s a link to some notes from the UN climate change meeting happening in Bangkok at the moment: http://www.iisd.ca/vol12/enb12358e.html
I’ve pulled out a few points which look interesting…(my emphasis)
NEW ZEALAND stated that rules must be improved and finalized before new commitments are made. CHINA stressed that if the rules are changed, the 25-40% indicative range of Annex I emission reductions must be increased.
CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK stressed that emission reductions in industrial sectors should not be substituted with emission reductions in other sectors, such as LULUCF, and stressed the need to protect biodiversity and indigenous rights.
JAPAN highlighted the potential of sectoral approaches in achieving global emission reductions, and NEW ZEALAND supported analyzing other types of commitments in addition to quantified targets. CHINA stated that sectoral approaches cannot replace targets but can be used as a means of achieving them.
AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, ICELAND and others also urged reviewing of rules on LULUCF and flexible mechanisms. AUSTRALIA suggested broadening the scope of mechanisms, especially in relation to sinks, CCS and afforestation and reforestation. INDONESIA identified the need to review the rules for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and MALAYSIA proposed addressing complex procedures and high transaction costs under the CDM. TUVALU suggested auctioning Assigned Amount Units.
NORWAY identified the need to consider different emission scenarios, LULUCF, bunker fuels and CCS. The RUSSIAN FEDERATION identified sinks and deforestation as key issues.
…new voices, especially Australia’s, speaking for the first time as a party to the Protocol, were welcomed. Some feared, however, that pre-Kyoto ideas, especially those related to sources and sinks, could detract from meaningful progress.
Here are some paragraphs from an interesting old press release: http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/climate/2000nov9.html
Why did the Kyoto Protocol have this “perverse” incentive? Why didn’t it include a mechanism to protect old growth forests?
This paper is interesting: Environmentalists split over Kyoto and Amazonian deforestation, Philip M. Fearnside, Environmental Conservation, Volume 28, Issue 04, Dec 2001, pp 295-299
I’ve pulled out some quotes: (my emphasis)
Four major European-dominated NGOs (Greenpeace International, WWF-International, Birdlife International and FOE [Friends of the Earth]-International) oppose inclusion of avoided deforestation in the CDM. The opposite position is held by major environmental NGOs headquartered in the USA, such as Conservation International (CI), Environmental Defense (EDF), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
It is difficult to understand how any environmental organization could take a stand that implies throwing away one of the most important opportunities for maintaining tropical forests. This is particularly so for organizations like WWF and Birdlife International that have protection of biodiversity as their primary purpose, since without tropical forests the World’s biodiversity would be much reduced.
While excluding forests would be a very important loss for biodiversity, this would be in exchange for only a modest (or even non-existent) gain for climate.
The position of European NGOs can better be understood in terms of the unconscious attraction of an opportunity to strike a blow at the USA. In Europe, the USA’s consumption lifestyle and associated cultural domination is resented on many counts, and symbols such as McDonalds, Coca Cola and Walmart are generally reviled.
Attacking this vaguely defined complex of targets finds a ready following for reasons that have little to do with climate change. These include a desire to punish the USA for its various sins in the world, the country’s role as villain in climate negotiations among them. Although reducing consumption in the USA would have climate benefits, reducing this consumption should be viewed as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. Viewed in this way, it should not be allowed to subvert global-warming mitigation efforts in other spheres, such as tropical forest conservation. The environmental price would be high if we throw away a major opportunity to maintain tropical rain forest in exchange for an expected climate benefit several centuries in the future.
I find it shocking that conservation groups actually fought to exclude the protection of forests from the Kyoto Protocol.
Think of all the million of hectares that have been destroyed in that time, and no mechanism in the global climate agreement, “the only game in town”, to protect them.
And now countries are under pressure to reduce their use of fossil fuels by using biofuels – which results in even more destruction of rainforest, by countries like Indonesia that don’t even have emission targets under Kyoto. So countries such as those in the EU are actually offloading their emissions onto Indonesia.
This Time article, “The Clean Energy Scam” discusses the impact of biofuels: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
Here’s a quote from the article: “Strange as it sounds, we’re better off growing food and drilling for oil. Sure, we could conserve fuel and buy efficient cars, but we should keep filling them with gas if the alternatives are dirtier”.
It’s hard to know who is really wearing the “white hat”…
Brian. Thought you might be interested in this article by Warwick McKibbin for another angle on the climate change debate:
Climate Change Policy Built on Shaky Foundation, The Australian Financial Review, 28 March 2008 http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0328_climate_change_mckibbin.aspx
Here’s the final paragraph: (My emphasis)
Here’s a transcript from an ABC PM interview with McKibbin last November – http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s2082322.htm
I’ve pulled out some quotes (my emphasis)
Economist calls for bipartisan approach on climate
• Australia may be better served if the parties worked together on the issue.
• I think climate policy is an issue that requires a long-term plan and very careful consideration. Not short term electoral argy-bargy.
• …what we do need is a firm set of policies in place which is bipartisan.
• Any time you have difference of opinion on both sides of politics, the long-term credibility of the policy is undermined and that means that you don’t end up with an effective outcome.
• It has to be bi-partisan.
• …we need to mature now on environmental policy and then we will start seeing the sort of investments coming from the private sector that are required.
• Well, I think Bali is already finished. We know that not much will happen. There could be some discussion of forests which is critical but I don’t think anything effective will come out of Bali. The next stage after that is the G8 summit in Hokkaido which is in July next year.
• The next meeting after that which is really the critical meeting is the one that is going to be held in Copenhagen but even then you’re still negotiating over the wrong strategy and so we’ll keep pushing these decisions into the future, year after year and we won’t effectively get a decent agreement, I don’t think, for many, many years to come.
• It means that countries have to start taking action nationally and rather than relying on a global consensus to impose on their own constituencies real policies, countries have to take in on their own shoulders and move forward in a way which if of national benefit as well as global benefit.
• We know how to design those sorts of policies, our approach is one but there are many different approaches and that has to be don’t shirk your national responsibility even though you are waiting for an international negotiated outcome.
• Climate change is something that used to be just the rich countries could afford but now we understand that is something that all countries need to take action in.
Brian. I wonder if Time to ditch Kyoto had any influence at the Bali meeting? From a forests angle, it’s interesting the meeting decided to encourage action outside the Kyoto Protocol for the period 2008 – 2012.
Gwyn Prins reiterated his argument in this co-authored, broad-ranging paper: Risk, Threat and Security: The Case of the United Kingdom
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1311690/risk_threat_and_security_the_case_of_the_united_kingdom/
I’ve extracted a couple of paragraphs: (my emphasis)
I’d like to see a “coalition of the willing” address the problem of deforestation…
For those who are interested, reports on the Bangkok climate change talks can be accessed here: http://www.iisd.ca/climate/ccwg1/
And here are some comments from Kevin Rudd in Brussels:
Kevin Rudd speaks on climate change at Policy Centre Briefing, Brussels
http://www.australia.to/story/0,25197,23040466-951,00,00.html
I hope he encourages some action NOW for the period 2008-2012.
Brian. Re Ziggy Switkowski’s article: Greenhouse deals ‘beat carbon trading’: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23426799-11949,00.html
Perhaps Ziggy and Tony Blair should have a chat: (my emphasis)
Here’s a link to an article by Andrew Robb in The Australian on 1 April: Snubbing India not the best way to engage with Asia: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23462485-7583,00.html%3Ffrom%3Dpublic_rss
Here are some quotes from the publication: State of the World’s Forests 2007, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2007: http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0773e/a0773e00.htm
In the Nature article Save the Trees, Jeff Tolleson reports the way that forests will be protected is “being hotly debated”. http://origin.www.nature.com/news/2008/080305/full/452008a.html;jsessionid=055A8DE4DD00F7566567BCFB495054CB
Here are a couple of recent articles that discuss offsetting / carbon trading:
Forest carbon facility: “more harm than good”?
http://brettonwoodsproject.org/art-561066
The great carbon con: Can offsetting really help to save the planet?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-great-carbon-con-can-offsetting-really-help-to-save-the-planet-803933.html
Can’t you just hear the sound of chainsaws in the background as all the years of chit chat continue…
Note: The Stern Review details a variety of options that could be used to support forests. (Stern Review p. 546 – 551): http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/9/5/Chapter_25_Reversing_Emissions_from_Land_Use_Change.pdf
Kevin Rudd is attending the Progressive Governance Conference in London. on 4 April.
Sounds like a good venue to raise the global deforestation issue?
And I imagine they will discuss the impact of our increasing global population…
Brian, re our previous comments re population. You might be interested to check out this UN report: World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision
The Executive Summary makes for very interesting reading: Here’s a few points:
Re earlier comments on APEC. This is interesting…
Australia ‘reverting on climate change’, (The Australian, 3 April 08)
Memo to Elizabeth Hart: having people stop responding to your comments so that you get the final six (long) comments in a thread doesn’t mean that you have won your arguments.
It only means that you have effectively bullied/bored/stupefied other participants into silence.
Please read the Comments Policy regarding excessively frequent and excessively long comments.
Yes, no one seems to want to discuss why if protecting forests overseas can yield such huge benefits why we simply just don’t do the same here. Reams of gumpf from Turnbull, Ziggy and presumably soon Garrett and Wong avoid this very simple proposition entirely.
Forests are carbon stores – natural sequestration – up to 1700 tonnes per hectare – if we are smart enough to just stop chopping them down.
tigtog. Sorry I’ve “bullied/bored/stupefied other participants into silence”. I suppose I have pushed the envelope on this blog, but it’s been an opportunity to get attention for the global forest destruction problem so it’s worth incurring your wrath.
I guess I’ve been “bullied/bored/stupefied” by the whole Kyoto palaver – it’s a pretty one-sided “debate”. It’s been frustrating there’s been so little critical analysis of this issue in Australia.
No wonder I fell upon the Time to ditch Kyoto article when I saw a reference to it in The Australian last year.
As I’m relatively new to the environment/Kyoto scene, I didn’t even find out until late last year that Kyoto actually excluded protection for forests. And it was only very recently that I discovered that NGOs such as Greenpeace, WWF and Friends of the Earth were instrumental in this exclusion, according to Philip Fearnside. (Saving tropical forests as a global warming countermeasure: an issue that divides the environmental movement, Ecological Economics 39 (2001) 167–184). I was pretty shocked when I read that. Is this a well-known fact in Australia?
I think it’s about time Kyoto was examined for its failure on forests, considering deforestation is responsible for 20% of global emissions and considering how much forest has been destroyed over recent years.
Peterc – did you know Kyoto excluded all forests? Why aren’t you asking why Kyoto doesn’t protect developed countries’ forests? Why don’t you check out the Fearnside paper?
I admit I have gone a bit berserk with posts the last few days, but since there’s been a UN climate change meeting on in Bangkok, I thought people interested in this issue might have appreciated the links. And I was pleased to see Kevin Rudd’s speech in Brussels, it sounded promising.
Anyway, I’ve had a good run, and it looks like nobody wants to carry on the discussion here, so I’ll move on to fresh fields.
Bye
Yes I do, I didn’t say it did. It should have, leaving it out was a mistake. The next agreement should cover forests, as was discussed at Bali, and lobbied against by timber industry attendees.
What I can’t understand is why your passion for protecting forests as carbon stores – which I fully support – doesn’t extend to Victoria, SE NSW and Tasmania, where large areas of old growth and hcv forests are still being logged. Did you know that? Why won’t you consider this?
Anyway, I’ve had a good run, and it looks like nobody wants to carry on the discussion here, so I’ll move on to fresh fields.
People with something valuable to say which is too lenghty for blog comments usually get their own blog – just a suggestion
Exactly, Helen.
Elizabeth, I have no idea whether I agree with you or not. I haven’t actually read what you wrote, because in a comments thread the length of your contributions simply made my eyes glaze over. Comments threads are meant to be a discussion, not a lecture.
Please, by all means feel free to start your own blog with the lengthy links, analysis and arguments. Then pick out an appropriate pungent paragraph or two which is directly on topic for the discussion here, and link to your own post which fleshes out your point.
It’s a bit of an art, I admit. Simply dropping a very broadly tangential link without tailoring it to the discussion here is also frowned upon as heavyhanded splogging. But it can be done.
Peterc. I’ll respond to your comment later. In the meantime, you might be interested in this article: CLIMATE CHANGE: New Value For Old Forests http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41858
Elizabeth,
Thanks for the link, I was aware of the Hobart convention where the issue of forest protection and Australian old growth came up – and was not resolved, as per the following quotes from the article:
Scientists (not under the thrall and/or funding of the logging and woodchippping industries) agree that logging our remaining old growth should stop, for obvious reasons (biodiversity protection, threatened species habitat, water production, carbon storage etc). This is inline with majority public opinion.
But the industry and economists still attempt to justify ongoing forest destruction, behaving like irresponsible kids with their hands in our cookie jar.
And now Labor (including Peter Garrett and Kevin Rudd) falls lockstep into John Howard’s previous forest policies, just like John Howard fell in with Keating’s & Hawkes.
Helen and tigtog. Thanks for the suggestion re a blog. But given that my recent (admittedly lengthy and numerous!) comments haven’t elicited a response, I’d probably be wasting my time. Plus I’m trying to stay on top of umpteen Google alerts, so I’d better stick with that.
Actually, I’ve found some of the other lengthy posts on this blog very interesting and useful, particularly those backed up with references and links.
I left an edited version of my recent letter to Kevin Rudd and other politicians re the problem of rainforest destruction on the Progressive Governance conference website over the weekend (Kevin Rudd was there, along with other world leaders), plus a post about my concerns re our growing global population and sustainability. I wonder if they take any notice of these submissions, or is it all just for show? http://progov.pm.gov.uk/discuss/climate-change/
I’ve forwarded six detailed letters to Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong so far. I’ve had three responses in all, one of which was useful, but basically a couple of motherhood statements. Considering there’s a lot of hoo ha about the 2020 summit, it might be nice if they provided a decent response to a citizen who has taken the time to research and lobby them over the past year on an issue relevant to climate change and sustainability.
Peterc. Here’s a report of the recent UN climate change meeting in Bangkok. http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/enb12362e.pdf
I haven’t read through it in detail yet, just did a quick search on “Australia”. There’s a lot about LULUCF and CDM (and a lot of other acronyms…) I’m not a forestry expert. Does it mean anything beneficial for Australia’s old growth forests? I’ve pulled out a few of quotes:
Also see the “Negotiations on AWG Conclusions”
And you might be interested to read this recent article from the Washington Post: Corruption Stains Timber Trade: Forests Destroyed in China’s Race to Feed Global Wood-Processing Industry (Sunday, April 1, 2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/31/AR2007033101287.html
I guess we’re all complicit in this, most of us are consumers one way or another. I wonder how it can ever be sustainable?
Nicholas Stern has published a new report: Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/climateNetwork/publications/KeyElementsOfAGlobalDeal_30Apr08.pdf
This article in today’s Australian refers to it: Garnaut calls for binding targets http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23632060-2702,00.html
Those people interested in international forestry issues should check out Chapter 5 of the new Stern report.
The Humane Society’s Technical Bulletin Issue 11 (April 2008) also has a good report on the Bali meeting, particularly forestry and associated issues (pg 6 -7). (Click on “News – Events’ on HSI’s website to find a link to the Technical Bulletin) http://www.hsi.org.au/