The logging loopholes being proposed in Copenhagen have been getting media coverage around the World: New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Austria, Germany, the U.S.
They've been getting a lot of attention here to, with France trying to shut it tight within the EU and the block of developing countries proposing a limit on forest credits to address the appalling lack of transparency in the numbers developed countries have put forward.
Yesterday, the Climate Action Network released a simple, objective, transparent plan for closing the loopholes: account for all changes in emissions in the future based on the average emissions level from 1990 - 2007 - the total period for which we have historical data. It's so simple it's boring!
This graph for New Zealand depicts the problem quite well. The black line shows New Zeeland’s' emissions from forest management over time. The dotted grey line shows our suggested baseline, based on this data. The upper dotted line shows their forecast emissions in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, and also their proposed reference level. This means New Zealand would be allowed to increase its logging emissions by 188% and not account for this at all!!
So...what's the state of play? We don't know. The Ministers are here, but the draft agreement on forestry and land use is not nearly ready for them. We believe that the technical negotiators will meet tonight (over night?), probably locked in a room until they can agree to something.
Will it be a calculated deal that fails the climate? Or a framework with environmental integrity?
3 comments:
Dear Chris!
Some parties have problems with net-net and 1990 and others with other proposals!
What about a net-net type accounting (such as the "bar") with a cap around the bar (you defined it once as a "zone" [the width could be e.g. 5% of 1990 emissions w/o LULUCF); this might provide for proper accounting on the margins (within the symmetrical zone), help accomodate DC`s requests for capping the impact of the whole sector and help us get rid of the discussions on natural disturbances!
Looking forward to your comments!
Matt
Hi Matt,
That's a really good point. But I think the reason it's maybe better to have a cap on the upper end and a special provision to remove natural disturbances on the lower end is you can also remove the regrowth of the forests from accounting. If you just did the zone, you'd actually create imbalanced accounting I think (take out the fire emissions, but leave in the fire regrowth).
Dear Chris,
do you really think parties can establish a credible and transparent procedure to deal with natural disturbances, which can be applied to all parties (e.g. AUS for forest fires and SWE for ice breaks and extreme winds)?
I think the new system would be charming as it would still take into account env. integrity (same amount of credits and debits possible) and could be seen as a prolongation of the existing cap-system.
I think many parties could live with this approach, but I don`t know France`s position.
best regards matt
Post a Comment