Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

At COP28, ecologist Thomas Crowther, former chief scientific adviser for the United Nations’ Trillion Trees Campaign, was doing something he never would have expected a few years ago: begging environmental ministers to stop planting so many trees. Mass plantations are not the environmental solution they’re purported to be, Crowther argued. The potential of newly created forests to draw down carbon is often overstated. They can be harmful to biodiversity. Above all, they are really damaging when used as avoidance offsets— “as an excuse to avoid cutting emissions,” Crowther said. …In 2019, his lab at ETH Zurich found that the Earth had room for an additional 1.2 trillion trees, which could suck down as much as two-thirds of the carbon that humans have emitted. …Crowther, who says his message was misinterpreted, put out a more nuanced paper last month, which shows that preserving existing forests can have a greater climate impact than planting trees. 

Negotiators from around the world haggled deep into the night to try to strike a deal to halt global warming at United Nations climate talks, with Western powers and vulnerable developing countries worried that a proposed text fell far short of goals to save the planet. A new draft released Monday of what’s known as the global stocktake — the part of talks that assesses where the world is at with its climate goals and how it can reach them — called for countries to reduce “consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” The release triggered a frenzy of fine-tuning by government envoys and rapid analysis by advocacy groups, just hours before the planned late morning finish to the talks on Tuesday — even though many observers expect the finale to run over time, as is common at the annual U.N. talks. 

ROME – Agroforestry is a key climate solution with huge potential to simultaneously improve food security and nutrition and alleviate poverty, while halting deforestation, conserving biodiversity, building resilience, and helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Director-General of the FAO QU Dongyu said. He delivered his opening remarks at a special joint event of the FAO’s Committee on Forestry… on Agriculture-Forestry Linkages. The event entitled “Scaling up agroforestry” took place on the sidelines of the 174th Session of FAO Council. The Director-General highlighted the need for scaling up agroforestry and its numerous environmental and socio-economic benefits, noting that it will require concerted efforts to foster greater collaboration and knowledge-sharing between forestry and agriculture sectors. According to the FAO’s State of the World’s Forests report in 2022, agroforestry can help restore over one billion hectares of degraded agricultural land, to increase soil fertility and agricultural productivity, while enriching ecosystem services and livelihoods.

For Lebanon’s Christians, cedar trees are sacred. These tough evergreens that survive the mountain’s harsh snowy winters are mentioned 103 times in the Bible. The trees are a symbol of Lebanon, pictured at the centre of the national flag. The iconic trees in the country’s north are far from the clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops along the Lebanon-Israel border in recent weeks against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. …But the long-term survival of the cedar forests is in doubt for another reason. Rising temperatures due to climate change threaten to wipe out biodiversity and scar one of the country’s most iconic heritage sites for its Christians. …The United Nations’ culture agency UNESCO in 1998 listed both the cedar forest and the valley as World Heritage Sites. They’ve become popular destinations for hikers and environmentalists from around the world. 

Voluntary carbon markets have been at the forefront of allegations of greenwashing in recent years. …Carbon credits linked to forest initiatives have attracted particularly strong criticism recently, with companies accused of using these credits as offsets to avoid responsibility for reducing their own emissions. …As a result, confidence in the market has been shaken, choking off a potentially vital financial source for forest countries. To be clear, the problems with forest carbon markets that have hit the front pages are very real. But they aren’t the full story. …We shouldn’t gloss over bad practice. But we also shouldn’t overlook the years of work done by governments to ensure forest carbon transactions can be done with integrity. This includes the creation of the U.N.’s REDD+ framework for “reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries.

The Climate Change Authority’s (CCA) second Annual Progress Report recognises that the ‘carbon stored in trees’ as well as ‘harvested wood products’ helped reduce Australia’s greenhouse emissions in the year to June 2023. Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) Chair Joel Fitzgibbon said “We are delighted by the growing recognition that sustainable forest harvesting makes sense. When sustainable practices are followed, forestry not only provides sustainable products for consumers, it also helps us meet our decarbonisation aspirations. “This recognition is in no small way, the result of the excellent work of the AFPA team led by Natasa Sikman, Acting CEO and Climate Change Policy Manager.” Australia’s emissions increased to 467 million tonnes in the year to June 2023, an increase of 4 million tonnes. It is clear more work must be done. AFPA welcomes the recognition that the forestry and forest products sector has an important and greater role to play.

DUBAI — In a groundbreaking move at the World Climate Action Summit, the COP28 Presidency and its partners unveiled a series of ambitious initiatives with an initial commitment of $1.7bn to simultaneously address climate and biodiversity goals. This landmark announcement signifies a pivotal shift towards recognizing nature as an indispensable ally in the fight against climate change. …The summit witnessed the unveiling of national and regional investment plans and partnerships focused on nature-climate action, demonstrating a collective commitment to the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. …The collective commitment to nature-based solutions demonstrates the growing recognition that protecting and restoring ecosystems is not only essential for environmental health but also a critical component of climate action. As the world prepares for COP28 Nature, Land Use, and Ocean Day on December 9th, the momentum for nature-based solutions continues to build. 

Bjørn Lomborg

The spectacle of another annual climate conference is getting underway. Like Kabuki theater, performative set pieces lead from one to the other: politicians and celebrities arrive by private jets; speakers predict imminent doom; hectoring NGOs cast blame; political negotiations become fraught and inevitably go overtime; and finally: the signing of a new agreement that participants hope and pretend will make a difference. …What won’t be acknowledged… is the awkward reality that while climate change has real costs, climate policy does, too. …The only thing that could avoid this summit being a retread of 27 other failures is if politicians acknowledge the real cost of net zero policy — and vow to dramatically increase green energy R&D. This would help innovate the price of low-carbon energy below that of fossil fuels so every country in the world will want to make the switch. Instead of subsidizing today’s still-inefficient technology… we need to make green technologies genuinely cheaper. 

LONDON — The International Sustainable Forestry Coalition (ISFC) will be representing some of the world’s largest companies engaged in sustainable forestry at COP28, and will be promoting the role of forestry and land-use in the global climate transition. …With greater investment, forestry and land management could contribute up to 25% of the emissions reductions needed to reach net zero. It is widely expected at COP that there will be more focus on the role that sustainably produced timber can play in the built environment, and ISFC will be taking a leading role in these discussions and promoting the expanded contribution of the forestry sector to the decarbonization of the global economy. …The global membership group, representing 12 members managing 10 million hectares of forests across 30 countries, will promote the policy areas and positions it stands for – per its recent position paper.

Installing solar panels in semi-arid regions of the world rather than planting new forests would be better for mitigating climate change, according to researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Earth and planetary scientist Eyal Rotenberg and colleagues looked at afforestation, which is very different from reforestation. …Their results showed that photovoltaic fields break even and begin offering climate change mitigation benefits after around 2.5 years. That is more than fifty times faster than afforestation. Solar power is also about 100 times more efficient in terms of atmospheric carbon reduction. In more humid climates, afforestation caught up to solar fields significantly, but photovoltaics still had a break-even time that is about 20 times faster. Besides, say the researchers, for afforestation to offer climate change benefits, “land area required greatly exceeds availability for tree planting in a sufficient scale.” Forests do offer many other benefits though, the team writes.

Most participants argue that REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, plus enhancements of carbon stocks in developing countries) is included in the Paris Agreement, even though the acronym is nowhere to be found. That’s because of two related Articles: Article 5 recognizes the need to cooperate on forest conservation, while Article 6 recognizes the transfer of mitigation outcomes. The rules for implementing Article 6 weren’t finalized until six years after the landmark Paris Agreement. Agreeing on the practical details remains one of the main objectives of COP28. …Negotiators will consider rules for linking trading systems under 6.2 and nitty gritty issues such as the creation of reporting templates and how countries will submit transactions to the UN for review. Experts from The Gold Standard says there are already 40 bilateral Memorandums of Understanding under Article 6.2, but only three country-to-country deals have been authorized – all involving Switzerland as a buyer.

Verra, the world’s largest certifier of carbon credits, has released an update for calculating the climate benefits of the REDD forest conservation projects it certifies. The U.S.-based nonprofit said the changes, released Nov. 27, will bolster the integrity of these credits and buyer confidence by employing the latest science and technology to improve the accuracy of its carbon accounting. …Verra says it had issued more than 1 billion certified carbon credits by 2022 under its verified carbon standard program. However recent criticisms of REDD+ and Verra’s approach to carbon accounting have called into question the veracity of claims that each credit sold actually corresponds to the reduction of an emission of a metric ton of CO2. A recent study in the journal Science found that many projects that generated Verra-certified credits overstated their climate benefits (an assertion that Verra disputes).

A new report from Greenpeace East Asia draws attention to the risks associated with carbon offsets in China. China represents a massive market for the accreditation and sale of carbon offset credits, particularly in the light of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports. …Li Jiatong, Greenpeace East Asia Beijing-based project leader said: “In the past few years, the global carbon offset industry has been riddled with scandals and costly methodological errors.” Li went on to say that carbon offsetting is swiftly enveloping China, even as it is currently in a crisis of confidence around the world. …One of the main subjects of the analysis conducted by Greenpeace are the forestry carbon projects in China, which are said to frequently demonstrate inconsistent levels of quality largely due to a lack of rigorous standards and insufficient data collection. …Greenpeace East Asia is urging authorities to disregard them completely.

As the focus on reducing operational carbon shifts to embodied carbon emissions, estimated to rise to 85% of Australia’s built environment by 2050, the forest and wood products industry stands at the forefront of sustainable solutions. With timber and wood products storing carbon and serving as low-emission materials, the sector plays a crucial role in achieving a ‘net-zero’ built environment. Embracing innovation and investment in low carbon, circular building solutions, and supporting transparent, healthy, low-embodied carbon products are key priorities. The Australian Government’s recent $300 million program, aimed at encouraging mass timber construction, reflects a significant step towards realising these objectives. Forest & Wood Products Australia (FWPA) provides the industry with essential knowledge and guidance, empowering them to actively contribute to the ongoing carbon and sustainability dialogue and identify future opportunities for growth and focus via a new three-part report series.

A new study published in Nature demonstrates that estimates of current land-based emissions vary between scientific models and national greenhouse gas inventories due to differing definitions of what qualifies as “managed” land and human-induced, or anthropogenic removals on that land, and shows how global mitigation benchmarks change when accounting for land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) fluxes in scientific models from the national inventory perspective. …Countries have recognized the importance of the LULUCF sector, with 118 of 143 countries including land-based emissions reductions and removals in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are at the heart of the Paris Agreement and the achievement of its long-term goals. In their study, the research team underscores the necessity to compare like for like when assessing progress towards the Paris Agreement with countries needing to achieve more ambitious climate action when comparing their national starting points with global models.

Sweden has 70% forest cover and is a world-leading producer of forest products. Naturally, its bioeconomy is dominated by wood. In recent years, Sweden’s forestry industry has embarked on eco-modernisation, extending their product range from traditional pulp, timber, and paper into higher-value wood-based chemicals and materials. With close ties to regional and central government, the industry now positions themselves as a key actor in Swedens’ decarbonisation. The country’s ‘green gold’ , industry actors argue, offers a ready substitute for oil plastics, petrochemicals, and mined minerals in sectors as diverse as pharma, personal care, and construction. Many of the standalone biotech startups coming out of Sweden today also depend on wood feedstock from the forestry industry, turning that preeminent pre–industrial material into novel materials. Thanks to them, wood is even entering renewable energy storage, for example through Cellfion’s cellulose nanofibril membranes – wafer thin components made of wood-based biopolymers.