THE WORLD GETS THAT SINKING FEELING

by Paul Brown
(copyright) The (Manchester) Guardian Weekly 2-11-2000, page 23

It all sounds terribly neat. Two trees equal four pots of tea a day for six years; five trees planted soak up enough carbon to allow conscience-free driving in an average car for a year; 40 trees equal the average home's carbon dioxide emissions over five years; or seven trees buy carbon credits for five London to New York single air tickets.

In theory, if you plant enough trees you can offset any polluting habits you may have; or, if you are an industry or a country, you can think big and cover whole regions in forests and become "carbon neutral".

But although some governments, notably that of the United States, are wildly enthusiastic about storing carbon in new forests, and see it as a way of offsetting their emissions, Europe is dubious. Some environment groups regard it as downright dishonest, a get-out clause that allows an easy escape from taking domestic action to combat climate change.

This will make the issue of carbon sinks, as they are known, the biggest single sticking point at climate talks in The Hague later this month. This crunch meeting comes after three years of negotiations on the Kyoto protocol. Designed as the legally binding first step in dealing with global warming, the aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5% on 1990 levels as a start to the 60% cut that scientists say is needed. Kyoto was always seen as the beginning of greater things, but if there is no deal in The Hague there is no other way forward for the treaty, and we would all be sunk - literally, if scientists are right, and sea levels continue to rise for the next 300 years.

A sink is a natural way of capturing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and turning it back into solid carbon. Trees are the obvious example, but the most potent sink is plankton, which, while alive, take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to create their body mass and which, when dead, sink to the bottom of the sea.

The reason the issue of sinks has become so important is that the US, the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, cannot reach its greenhouse gas reduction target under current domestic political measures. The economy has boomed so much since the baseline date of 1990 that carbon dioxide emissions would have to be cut back by as much as 30% to reach the 2010 target of a 7% reduction.

President Bill Clinton's advisers say they knew this in 1997, when the original deal was struck, which is why they insisted that credits for sinks and carbon-trading were built into the agreement. This issue has become more urgent because in the past three years the US economy has boomed even more. As a result the scope for action at home to curb greenhouse gases is more difficult.

So for the US sinks have become an ever larger part of the answer. Everyone wants more forests, they say - surely it's a winner. Superficially the US is right: it is hard to object to the idea of sinks. Covering derelict land with trees, replacing long-cleared woods and forests, holds a great attraction. It gives value and possible protection to depleted forests, which might otherwise be cleared for agriculture. Credits should also be permitted, the US says, for allowing secondary forests to regrow and fix carbon.

The Americans and their allies, Japan, Australia and Canada, also argue for all sorts of credits for other land use - for example, direct injection of seeds into farmland rather than ploughing prevents carbon escaping from the soil.

The problem is that neat calculations about trees and cups of tea have so many uncertainties attached. On a large scale, when trees and undergrowth are growing in a new forest, guestimates of carbon fixing could be millions of tonnes awry. As Michael Meacher, the UK environment minister, and Jurgen Tritten, his German counterpart, put it in a joint statement on September 3, a false calculation on carbon savings could bring a 20% increase in emissions rather than the 5% decrease agreed as a first step under the protocol.

The US accepts that the science is uncertain, although research is improving. To get round the problem the pro-sink countries are suggesting claiming only a percentage of the carbon saved - say 50% of the best guess.

But even assuming calculations about carbon uptake of a new forest over the next 10 years could be agreed, what happens in 30 or 50 years when new woods begin to reach maturity? At least some of the wood should be harvested, potentially putting carbon back into the atmosphere. Worse, as last summer in the US has made plain, some forests burn down unpredictably because of lightning strikes. The third possibility is that as the climate changes the forests die anyway, as scientists predict will happen to the Amazon by 2050. In any of these scenarios, what happens to the accrued carbon credits? Do they have to be repaid?

Another serious problem for environmentalists is the type of tree and forest planted. The best trees from the carbon point of view, fast-growing varieties that create bulk, such as eucalyptus or genetically modified poplar, are not going to create the sort of natural forests that are best for biodiversity. If big business demands maximum carbon for its bucks, wildlife will not necessarily benefit. There have even been proposals to clear natural forests and replace them with dense plantations of fast-growing trees to claim extra credits.

To illustrate how far apart the sides are at so late a stage in the negotiations, the US is demanding that there should be no cap on the credits it can gain for sinks - it could in theory create enough forests to achieve all its carbon dioxide reductions without taking a single action at home. The European Union position is that all countries must achieve at least 50% of their targets through domestic action, a tall order for boom countries such as the US and Ireland. A majority of the green lobby is tempted to demand that while the science remains so uncertain sinks should be excluded from the deal altogether.

A telling point was made by the British delegation in the last round of "pre-talks" in Lyon in September. Leaving carbon in the ground in the form of coal or oil is the best way of permanently keeping it out of the atmosphere - sinks at best only store it temporarily. Since the Lyon meeting, where it seemed the issue was incapable of resolution, US delegations have been touring Europe to try to soften up individual EU countries on sinks. The US bottom line was: a free hand on sinks, or there will be no deal in The Hague.

It seems the Kyoto process is already in deep water.

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