Three cheers for trees.
There’s a remarkable amount of indifference towards forestry projects in the carbon offsets industry. Greenpeace for example, in conversation with me last year, confirmed they have no interest in forestry, preferring to put their money into alternative energy projects. The ‘Gold Standard’ for carbon credits specifically excludes forestry projects. At a meeting hosted by the UK’s DEFRA last year one researcher, Anja Kollmuss of Tufts University, expressed outright hostility towards forests projects saying, and I paraphrase here, that forestry projects have no place in the carbon credits industry at all. Last year there was all manner of hokum in the press about trees actually being bad for the planet, based on a study that was at best flawed and at worst utterly dishonest. So it’s refreshing to read in the UK’s Independent Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming.
Figures from the GCP, summarising the latest findings from the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, while transport and industry account for 14 per cent each; and aviation makes up only 3 per cent of the total.
Scientists say one days’ deforestation is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York. Reducing those catastrophic emissions can be achieved most quickly and most cheaply by halting the destruction in Brazil, Indonesia, the Congo and elsewhere.
Carbon Planet is proud of its work with both NSW Forests and with Landcare in Australia on a variety of reforestation projects. Of course forests are not the only source of our carbon credits, we also trade in all manner of energy replacement credits and others. I find the hostility towards forests shown by some people utterly confusing. There are all sorts of reasons to love forests, to want to preserve the ones we have and to re-vegetate land we’ve stripped bare over the centuries. — DS
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