Carbon Bio-Economics and Forests: Getting the BESF Out of Climate Policy

Abstract

One of the most remarkable debates in the ongoing climate policy refers to carbon removal through biological terrestrial sinks. Since nearly 40 per cent of the planet’s surface is covered with forests or forested areas (Ciesla, 1997), forestland stands out as one of the major terrestrial carbon sinks. Nonetheless, ever since energy-efficiency-CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) was established by Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997, during the COP-3 (3rd Conference of the Parties signing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – UNFCCC), in Kyoto, Japan, forest-rich countries have complained that energy projects either saving or removing carbon emissions from fossil fuels would largely favour industrialised nations. Only at the COP-5, in 1999, in Bonn, Germany, Latin American, Asian and African countries made their point of including, in the Kyoto Protocol, the so-called “forestry-CDM”, for reforestation and afforestation projects. Such an amendment was though very cautiously endorsed by countries like Germany and the United Kingdom (Moura-Costa & Aukland, 2001). Due to geo-political imbalances caused by differences in fossil-fuel prices across a few industrialised nations, they have strongly campaigned for reducing emissions at source – like in energy-efficiency-CDM projects – against mitigating them by sinks – like through avoiding deforestation (Fearnside, 2001). Later on, forestry-CDM was blamed for favouring only planted (unnatural) forests and disregarding any effort towards conservation of natural woodlands. Therefore, at the COP13, in 2007, in Bali, Indonesia, forest-rich countries demanded that the protection of natural forests, by avoiding deforestation, had also to be rewarded. Thenceforth, at the following COP’s (COP-14, in 2008, in Poland; COP-15, in 2009, in Denmark; and COP-16, in 2010, in Mexico), forest-rich countries had been arguing that avoiding deforestation was the cheapest and fastest way of curbing carbon emissions and combating climate change. On top of this argument, labelled REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), a REDD+ one was added, at COP-15, to include, in the protection strategy (ecosystem conservation and damage prevention), the enhancement of forest stocks. Although, unlike CDM, the REDD mechanism is still under construction, the current state of affairs concerning the role played by forests in the climate policy comes down to the clash between forest plantations (forestry-CDM) and natural forests (REDD and REDD+). First and foremost, vegetation sinks, such as forests, are often claimed to “buy time” or play a “bridging role” until cleaner technologies become available to greatly curb future