Why has 20% of the global CO2 emissions been left out of global mechanisms?
Large areas of forest in tropical countries have been converted to land use practices with low economic benefits, simply because the value of timber made it attractive for outsiders to log and nobody had effective control; Photo - Meine van Noordwijk
Several years ago the international science community established that about 20% of global CO2 emissions are generated through land use change and the conversion and degradation of forests. While the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol makes some allowance for afforestation and reforestation, it has so far excluded avoided deforestation. There are good reasons for this:
- The definition of what is and is not a 'forest' is ambiguous.
- The CDM has taken a project approach. Re-forestation deals with enhancing tree cover on degraded lands, where it is easier to monitor carbon stocks and attribute changes to project activities.
- The CDM mechanism pays great attention to 'leakage' (making sure that gains in one place don't cause losses in another place) and 'additionality' (ensuring that carbon gained and/or conserved, relative to baselines, would not have occured without the project) - issues that cannot be reasonably addressed in avoided deforestation projects with limited geographical scope.
- The complexity of rules for applying the Clean Development Mechanism to afforestation and reforestation has meant that many of the potential benefits have been offset by the costs of consultants, research organizations, and government agencies. Little carbon value has reached local beneficiaries.
- The National Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas inventories (IPCC) (modified 1996 and 2006) indicate 60% uncertainty on changes in country-wide carbon stocks, the largest uncertainty in quantification of GHG inventories.
- Much deforestation is actually planned by land managers and governments because it leads to land uses with higher economic returns. Completely avoiding deforestation would require offset payments that are not feasible under present circumstances. Negotiating intermediate targets for "partial deforestation" of a particular landscape would be very complex.