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CLIMATE CHANGE:
Bolster Natural Carbon Absorption, Says UN
By
Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - Expanding the capacity of
natural areas for capturing and storing carbon is
one of the keys to curbing climate change, and would
be a relatively low-cost solution that would also
improve the quality of life of millions of farmers,
the United Nations said Friday.
More attention must be paid to natural carbon
absorption, along with cutting greenhouse gases
caused by humans, the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) stated in a report released to
coincide with World Environment Day, which was
globally hosted by Mexico.
The report, ‘The Natural Fix? The Role of Ecosystems
in Climate Mitigation’, calls for the adoption of a
"comprehensive policy framework" on management of
carbon – the main greenhouse gas - which would
include the conservation and restoration of
ecosystems and the management of grasslands and
agricultural areas.
"Safeguarding and restoring carbon in three systems
– forests, peatlands and agriculture - might over
the coming decades reduce well over 50 gigatonnes
(50 billion tonnes) of carbon emissions that would
otherwise enter the atmosphere: others like
grasslands and coastal ones such as mangroves are
capable of playing their part too," UNEP Executive
Director Achim Steiner says in the preface to the
report.
Slowing the rate of greenhouse gas emissions "will
be impossible without addressing carbon losses from
ecosystems such as forests and peatlands. Managing
ecosystems for carbon can not only reduce carbon
emissions; it can also actively remove carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere," says the 68-page
report.
"The multiple benefits of such investments range
from improved lives and livelihoods, employment in
areas such as conservation, management, monitoring
and rehabilitation alongside reversing the rate of
loss of biodiversity and improved water supplies up
to the stabilisation of precious soils," according
to Steiner.
"Implementation of widespread ecosystem carbon
management policies presents great challenges,
raising significant institutional and regulatory
issues and complex political and socio-economic
dilemmas. In particular, an effective policy will
need to achieve a balance between rural livelihoods
and carbon management policies that may threaten
those livelihoods," the report says.
But the global environmental watchdog Greenpeace
says the natural capacity of ecosystems to capture
carbon is not a priority in the negotiations among
governments ahead of the December U.N. Climate
Convention Meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"If no progress has been made in setting timeframes
for emissions cuts by developed countries, even less
progress has been made in the case of carbon
management," María José Cárdenas, head of the
Greenpeace Mexico climate and energy campaign, told
IPS.
The aim of the Denmark meeting is to sign a new
international climate change agreement to succeed
the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, in effect since 2005, the
37 industrialised countries committed themselves to
cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by five
percent on average, from 1990 levels, by target
dates ranging from 2008 to 2012.
Some of the countries, like Canada, have already
admitted that they will not reach the target.
The United States, which is responsible for
one-quarter of global greenhouse gases, is not a
party to the Kyoto Protocol, on the decision of
former president George W. Bush (2001-2009).
His successor President Barack Obama has pledged to
sign the new agreement that is to emerge from the
Denmark conference, and said his country would
assume clear commitments on air pollution.
But his administration has not referred to the need
for new agreements to enhance natural carbon
sequestration.
The UNEP report points out that "stabilising or
reducing the amount of atmospheric carbon can be
achieved in essentially two ways: by reducing the
rate of emission, or by increasing the rate of
absorption. Any successful strategy is almost
certain to need both approaches, and will require
contributions from all sectors."
The authors warn that "Currently the world’s
ecosystems, instead of maintaining and enhancing
nature’s carbon capture and storage capacity, are
being depleted at an alarming rate," while emissions
of "anthropogenic" greenhouse gases, especially from
the burning of fossil fuels, continue to rise.
There is currently more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere than at any other time in the last
650,000 years. In 2006, the average atmospheric
concentration of carbon dioxide was 381 parts per
million (ppm), compared to 280 ppm at the start of
the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century.
"The rate at which the concentration is increasing
is the highest since the beginning of continuous
monitoring in 1959," says the UNEP report.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
studies say that limiting global temperature
increase in order to stave off the worst effects of
climate change would require stabilising greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere at 445–490 ppm.
The current concentration is around 430 ppm.
According to the IPCC, global greenhouse gas
emissions will need to peak by 2015 and drop 85
percent below 2000 levels by 2050, in order to limit
global mean temperature increases to 2 to 2.4
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and thus
avoid some of the most extreme impacts of climate
change.
But as a result of the global economic recession,
the governments of industrialised nations, instead
of moving towards a low carbon future and
sustainable consumption, seem to be sticking to
oil-based energy and attempting to return to
pre-crisis consumption levels, Autonomous
Metropolitan University (UAM) of Mexico Professor
Martha Chávez told IPS.
However, there is also a renewed clamour from
experts and activists calling for a stop to the
destruction of the environment, "which would require
the modification of current economic and development
policies," said Chávez.
"What is achieved in Denmark could be important; the
negotiations are difficult but not impossible," she
added.
Greenpeace activist Cárdenas, on the other hand, was
not optimistic about the Denmark meeting.
"There is talk about a renewed interest in
negotiating emissions reduction commitments, but in
practice the crisis is being used to maintain the
consumerist system that has generated the climate
change problems we are suffering today," she said.
Steiner, by contrast, said the three trillion
dollars "worth of stimulus packages, mobilised to
reverse the downturn in the global economy,
represents an opportunity to Seal a meaningful
climate Deal and perhaps a once in a lifetime
opportunity to accelerate a transition to a
low-carbon Green Economy".
"There is every optimism governments in Copenhagen
will agree to begin paying developing countries for
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degradation (REDD)," he said.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N.
Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), said
this week that "The political moment is right to
reach an agreement. There is no doubt in my mind
that the Copenhagen climate conference in December
is going to lead to a result." |
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