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/

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?

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer stressed the need to respond to the great expectations generated by the Bali outcome and called for progress in both AWGs. Highlighting limited time to conclude negotiations, he emphasized the importance of negotiating a clear work programme for the AWGLCA

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:

Australia, New Zealand, Iceland and others urged reviewing the 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 CDM, and Malaysia proposed addressing complex procedures and high transaction costs under the CDM. Tuvalu suggested auctioning Assigned Amount Units (AAUs). The 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. (p.7)

Australia noted that parties should not foreclose new options for mitigation under LULUCF and favored the review of current rules to ensure simplicity without perverse incentives. He said effective monitoring systems are now available to allow for more accurate accounting. (p.9)

In summing up the key elements, Chair Dovland identified LULUCF as one of the most complex issues and recognized consensus on continuing the use of the principle from decision 16/CMP.1 (LULUCF) and ensure environmental integrity. Regarding the second commitment period rules, he suggested there were divergent views with some encouraging holistic approaches to LULUCF and agriculture and others wanting very few modifications to the rules agreed for the first commitment period. However, he noted that there was a general desire to avoid discontinuity between commitment periods or adopting dramatically different systems. Contentious issues related to new pools, such as HWP. He also noted the potential for LULUCF to contribute to sustainable forest management and biodiversity protection. (p.9)

Also see the “Negotiations on AWG Conclusions”

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.

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.

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:

David Lindenmayer, professor of ecology and conservation biology at the Australian National University in Canberra, said, “We probably ought to look to phasing out old growth forest logging altogether.”

While the conservationists are for a total ban on logging, arguing that the jobs lost in forestry and logging will be replaced by jobs in ecotourism or other industries, the economists think otherwise.

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.

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.

People with something valuable to say which is too lenghty for blog comments usually get their own blog – just a suggestion

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?

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?

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

Forests are carbon stores – natural sequestration – up to 1700 tonnes per hectare – if we are smart enough to just stop chopping them down.

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.

Australia ‘reverting on climate change’, (The Australian, 3 April 08)

THE Australian delegation to climate change talks in Bangkok has turned the clock back to the Howard era by failing to back binding greenhouse targets, environment group Greenpeace says.

According to Greenpeace activists in Bangkok, Australian delegation leader Jan Adams yesterday reverted to Howard government rhetoric of supporting US-style, long-term aspirational goals rather than binding targets.

“The Australian delegate suggested that a post-2012 commitment period shouldn’t have binding emission reduction commitments, it should be aspirational,” Greenpeace spokesman Paul Winn said from Bangkok. “They’re still following the line of the US, they still seem to be aligned with the Umbrella Group,” Mr Winn said.

The Umbrella Group is a loose coalition of non-EU developed countries including the US, Canada and Japan – which has argued against binding targets.

Greenpeace said Ms Adams’ rhetoric was out of step with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s climate change policies and more in line with those of former prime minister John Howard, who refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is hosting this high-level political conference aimed at tackling global issues such as climate change and poverty in the developing world.

Brown will be joined by 15 world leaders and more than 300 international policymakers, academics and experts for the Progressive Governance conference in London.

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:

According to the 2006 Revision, the world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion over the next 43 years, passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050.

Population growth remains concentrated in the populous countries. During 2005-2050, eight countries are expected to account for half of the world’s projected population increase: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, the United States of America, Bangladesh and China, listed according to the size of their contribution to global population growth.

In 2005-2010, fertility remains above 5 children per woman in 27 of the 150 developing countries, and those 27 countries account for 9 per cent of the world population. Most countries with very high fertility are poor and belong to the group of least developed countries. In contrast, fertility has reached below-replacement levels in 28 developing countries, which account for 25 per cent of the world population. This group includes China whose average fertility during 2005-2010 is estimated at 1.73 children per woman.

…The reduction expected in the group of 50 least developed countries is even sharper: from 4.63 children per woman in 2005-2010 to 2.50 children per woman 2045-2050. To achieve such reductions it is essential that access to family planning expands in the poorest countries of the world. The urgency of realizing the reductions of fertility projected is brought into focus by considering that, if fertility were to remain constant at the levels estimated for 2000-2005, the population of the less developed regions would increase to 10.6 billion instead of the 7.9 billion projected by assuming that fertility declines. That is, without further reductions of fertility, the world population could increase by twice as many people as those who were alive in 1950.

So it’s good to see officials in Bangladesh are calling:

upon the people to check population growth and help ensure development of the national economy.

The current trend of population increase must be checked, otherwise it may pose a threat to the healthy growth of the country’s socio-economic uplift programmes…

Climate Change

There is increasing evidence that forests will be profoundly affected by climate change. The recent outbreak of the mountain pine beetle in British Columbia, for example, appears to be related to historically high temperatures and may become the worst forest catastrophe in Canadian history.

On the other hand, forests can play a key role in mitigating climate change. However, the world is struggling with political and bureaucratic hurdles that are limiting the use of the Kyoto Protocol (United Nations, 1998) as an instrument to help stop tropical deforestation.

After its entry into force in February 2005, implementation of the Protocol and its mechanisms is slowly gaining momentum, but there has been little impact in the forest sector. As of 2006, 25 methodologies for setting baselines and monitoring Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects (in all categories) had won approval, and 64 projects employing one of the approved methodologies had been registered. Many more projects are in the pipeline (Figure 78). Forestry projects lag behind those of other sectors (Figure 79).

Among the hurdles is the decision by the European Commission not to admit carbon credits from forestry projects in its internal emission trading scheme.

Climate change negotiations have tended to focus on greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries. But attention now also encompasses developing countries, whose emissions are substantial and increasing. Attention focuses in particular on the role played by deforestation – which causes 35 percent of emissions in developing countries and fully 65 percent in the least developed countries. Unusually high participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Workshop on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries, held in Rome, Italy, from 30 August to 1 September 2006, was a clear sign that developing countries are ready to begin reducing their emissions from land-use changes and that the climate change regime is furthering its role in the global effort to reduce deforestation.

Financing is a key hurdle.

p. 74 ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/a0773e/a0773e09.pdf

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

Perhaps Ziggy and Tony Blair should have a chat: (my emphasis)

Some of the decisions will be difficult, controversial. Personally I see no way of tackling climate change without a renaissance of nuclear power. There will have to be a completely different attitude to the sharing of technology and to the patent framework that allows it.
Tony Blair’s speech to the Gleneagles Dialogue in Japan: http://tonyblairoffice.org/2008/03/tony-blair-speech-to-gleneagle.html

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

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

We also have to support large-scale cooperative efforts to develop new low-emission technologies and to reduce deforestation.

A key element of this will be developing effective mechanisms for funding and supporting adaptation, particularly in the least developed countries and vulnerable small island states.

Australia is keen to promote a more pragmatic approach to negotiations that moves beyond the rhetoric of the past.

To support the UN negotiations, we are also working through the Major Economies Meetings process, the climate change forums under the G8, and engaging in strategic bilateral dialogue with key countries – including China.

Emissions trading is at the heart of Australia’s and the EU’s drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I hope he encourages some action NOW 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)

The politics of climate change represent unexpected pressures

Climate change has now been added to the more familiar factors governing the competition for resources, and the security implications that flow from that competition. World food stocks may fall as demand increases for plant-based feedstock for biofuels. China and India have both made it plain that they will not constrain their economic growth to curtail emissions of man-made greenhouse gases. Can the Chinese Communist Party cope with political pressures rising from pervasive domestic pollution of air, land and water? The present failure of the Kyoto Protocol and the probable future failure of any successor built on the same flawed structural assumptions lay the ground for future conflicts of interest. This is a new source of tension between the advanced industrial regions, the demographic superpowers, and the rest; and it represents a simple operation of the Law of Unintended Consequences. The Law is greatly to be respected in developing a viable defence and security establishment. It turns risks into threats.

Multilateral institutions are weakening

Currently, for essentially ideological reasons, the United Kingdom continues to invest much effort and faith in three supranational institutions: the UN, NATO and the EU. The current Prime Minister restated that investment as his central credo in his first Mansion House foreign policy speech in November 2007. Yet all are simultaneously weakening. Originally intended as alliances to support agreed ends, they have lost their way and no longer offer their members the benefits once covenanted. What are the essential features of alliances worthy of that name? Shared essential values; shared culture, and especially military culture; shared interests; and, most basic of all, trust – trust enough to permit the special intelligence relationships enjoyed by the UK for the last sixty years with Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand. We have only to look at destinations for British emigration, and at world-wide phone traffic patterns, to see where our practical preferences are exercised.

…Coalitions of the willing are the only lasting kind; nations do not have permanent friends, only permanent interests.

I’d like to see a “coalition of the willing” address the problem of deforestation…

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)

It is time that politics was excised from the climate debate. Bipartisan support for a sensible climate policy is what is needed. Sensible climate policy is only partly found so far in the deliberations of the Garnaut review.

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.