Category Archives: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed for the first time to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the pollution spewed by wealthy nations that is dangerously heating the planet. The decision regarding payments for climate damage marked a breakthrough on one of the most contentious issues at United Nations climate negotiations. For more than three decades, developing nations have pressed for loss and damage money, asking rich, industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of destructive storms, heat waves and droughts fueled by global warming. But the United States and other wealthy countries had long blocked the idea, for fear that they could be held legally liable for the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change. The agreement hammered out in this Red Sea resort town says nations cannot be held legally liable for payments.

At the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the European Commission showed ambition and flexibility to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees within reach. After a difficult week of negotiations, a strong and united European effort helped secure a hard-fought deal to keep the targets of the Paris Agreement alive. The EU’s bridge-building also helped to put in place balanced new funding arrangements… to help vulnerable communities to face loss and damage caused by climate change. On mitigation, Parties agreed that limiting global warming to 1.5C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, reducing them by 43 percent by 2030 relative to the 2019 level. …On loss and damage, the Parties decided to establish new funding arrangements for assisting developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. …The final outcomes complement agreements secured by the Commission in the past two weeks. 

Sharm-El Sheikh, Egypt — This year’s United Nations Conference of Parties (COP 27) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt is in full swing, with countries gathered to decide on global action to combat climate change, with a sharp focus on fulfilling Article 6. The Climate Connect Digital (CCD) delegation visiting COP has released a white paper, detailing how carbon stocks in forests are being impacted by rising temperatures, and intensifying forest fires across the Indian subcontinental region. This gives concern for the future health of both natural ecosystems, and carbon markets. Current climate trends, and future projections are alarming, as the average temperature trend for the last 40 years has seen a rise of 0.5°C, leading to markedly increased weather volatility.

EUROPE — Policymakers at COP27 are trying to advance last year’s commitments to end global deforestation. But even as they support such efforts, some EU policymakers are seeking to water down a weak – yet still important – proposal by the European Parliament that would protect forests within the EU, by disqualifying energy from burning trees and other forest biomass from counting as renewable energy. …Now, thanks to an open letter from forestry scientists and practitioners, we can see what arguments they’ve been making. …What emerges is a disturbing picture of an industry that deploys dangerous misinformation, mirroring the worst trends in political tactics today. At stake is the EU’s ability to achieve climate, nature restoration, and air quality goals. …What should policymakers do? Immediately capping and phasing out forest biomass as ‘renewable energy’ by 2027, or 2030 at the latest.

Luiz da Silva

Six weeks before taking power, Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday told cheering crowds at the U.N. climate conference that he would crack down on illegal deforestation in the Amazon, reinitiate relationships with countries that finance forest protection efforts and push to host an upcoming world climate summit in the rainforest. In two appearances, da Silva laid out a vision for management of the world’s largest rainforest, critical to fighting climate change, that was in stark contrast to that of President Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration witnessed some of the most rapid cutting of forests in decades. “There will be no climate security if the Amazon isn’t protected,” said da Silva, adding that all crimes in the forest, from illegal logging to mining, would be cracked down on “without respite.”

Dean Baigent-Mercer

Forestry is back in the spotlight. After years of being on the margins, forestry has come full-circle and is again at the heart of discussions about New Zealand’s future. Why? Because of climate change and biodiversity. The opportunity is exciting but there are issues to resolve. A key question is native versus exotic forestry carbon sinks.  The world risks overshooting its climate change targets.  …New Zealand forestry has been quick to act and respond. New Zealand has gone down the pine forest carbon storage route as a relatively fast and cheap way to store carbon.  But it’s clear that this is no longer a viable path. The Climate Change Commission has advised that we must stop relying on pines to store carbon and instead rely on permanent carbon sinks in native forests.  Pine planting may appeal in the short term, but a large blaze can release a carbon bomb.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — The three countries that are home to more than half of the world’s tropical rainforests — Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo — are pledging to work together to establish a “funding mechanism” that could help preserve the forests, which help regulate the Earth’s climate and sustain a variety of animals, plants, birds and insects. The agreement, announced on Monday and signed by ministers from the three countries, said they would cooperate on sustainable management and conservation, restoration of critical ecosystems and creation of economies that would ensure the health of both the people and the forests. The plan has no financial backing of its own and was more of a call to action than a strategy for how to achieve its goals.

Estonia no longer has a good chance of amending the European Union’s Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) accord on climate targets, but it is still attempting to secure greater flexibility and disaster-related compensation mechanisms, Minister of the Environment Madis Kallas said. …When asked why it is critical to change the LULUCF sector, Kallas said that the LULUCF sector is the most important factor in achieving the 2030 and 2050 climate goals. “No other sector can sequester carbon dioxide.” Kallas said that he understands the industry’s concerns that the LULUCF regulation would harm its competitiveness. …Kallas added. “Shipping logs or pulpwood or simply using biomass to generate electricity, is certainly not something we want to continue. This is especially true considering that the condition of Estonia’s forests has seriously deteriorated during the last 20 to 30 years.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — At COP27, Leading companies including – H&M, Inditex, Ben & Jerry’s, Stella McCartney, HH Global, and Kering – announced a collective commitment to purchase over half a million tonnes of low-carbon, low-footprint alternative fibers for fashion textiles and paper packaging. It is a move that will support the protection of the world’s vital forests and ecosystems and lower forest degradation pressures from the fashion and packaging supply chains. …This market pull is essential to attract the investment necessary to scale these game-changing Next Generation alternatives on ecologically meaningful timelines. …Every year, over 3.2 billion trees are cut down to produce fibre for packaging and clothing, releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Alternatives to wood – such as agricultural residues and recycled textiles can be scaled in order to prevent the logging of these forests.

BRAZIL — Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and potential candidate for the job again, on Saturday brought a message to the U.N. climate summit: Brazil is back when it comes to protecting the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world and crucial to limiting global warming. The recent election of leftist President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva represents a potentially huge shift in how Brazil manages the forest compared to current President Jair Bolsonaro. …“Brazil will return to the protagonist role it previously had when it comes to climate, to biodiversity,” said Silva, who spoke with reporters at the Brazilian Climate Hub. …Upon winning the October elections, da Silva, president between 2003 and 2010, promised to overhaul Bolsonaro’s policies and move toward completely stopping deforestation, referred to as “Deforestation Zero.”

Switzerland, one of the world’s richest nations, has an ambitious climate goal: It promises to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. But the Swiss don’t intend to reduce emissions by that much within their own borders. Instead, the European country is dipping into its sizable coffers to pay poorer nations, such as Ghana or Dominica, to reduce emissions there — and give Switzerland credit for it. Here is an example of how it would work: Switzerland is paying to install efficient lighting and cleaner stoves in up to 5 million households in Ghana; these installations would help households move away from burning wood for cooking and rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Then Switzerland, not Ghana, will get to count those emissions reductions as progress toward its climate goals.

Ursula von der Leyen

Indeed, I am a medical doctor by training, so I know exactly what the function of lungs is. And there is a reason why we call our forests our lungs. So if the lungs of our planet are not kept healthy or restored, the whole planet is suffering – everywhere on the planet. And therefore, it is of course in our common interest to restore these great lungs that we have on our planet. And to focus on the Great Green Wall: Last year, at COP26, it was about pledging, about promises, about goals. This year is about implementation. So I just want to report about what we have done in that year. There are three points I want to look at. The first is funding. The second is trade. And the third is partnerships. …Last but not least, I am very happy that you are creating the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership. And I can confirm that we are proud and happy that the European Union is officially joining.

Additional coverage from the UK Government: World Leaders Launch Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership to accelerate momentum to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030

From the Government of Australia: Australia joins forests partnership to drive climate action

Projects meant to regenerate Australia’s outback forests to store carbon dioxide have been awarded millions of carbon credits – worth hundreds of millions of dollars – despite total tree and shrub cover in those areas having declined, a new analysis has found. It is the latest claim that raises doubts about the integrity of Australia’s carbon credit system, which the federal government and polluting businesses rely on to meet targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis by six academics, including the former carbon credit scheme integrity chair Prof Andrew Macintosh, has been presented to a review of the system commissioned by the climate change minister, Chris Bowen. …Macintosh, an environmental law and policy professor at the Australian National University and former head of the government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, said the analysis found compelling evidence of widespread problems with forest regeneration projects.

Ian McKelvie

Some foresters could be millions of dollars out of pocket due to a poorly communicated change in application deadlines, National’s Forestry spokesperson Ian McKelvie says. “Last month, the Ministry of Primary Industries sent an email to foresters announcing that they were moving the effective deadline to register forests for the Emissions Trading Scheme from the last day of the year to 25 October 2022, simply due to long processing times in their office. “This left forest owners just three working days to submit their applications. After that date has passed, their applications will not be processed until 2023. This change will prevent some forest owners from claiming five years’ worth of backdated credits to 2018. “Some forest owners stand to lose millions of dollars as a result of this poorly communicated change. …This is more than just incompetence, it is theft.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — More than 25 countries at the COP27 climate talks on Monday launched a group they said would ensure they hold each other accountable for a pledge to end deforestation by 2030, and announced billions of dollars to finance their efforts. The first meeting of the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, chaired by Ghana and the US, takes place a year after more than 140 leaders promised at COP26 in Britain to end deforestation by the end of the decade. Progress since has been patchy, with only a few countries instituting more aggressive policies on deforestation and financing. The new group… accounts for roughly 35% of the world’s forests and aims to meet twice a year to track progress. Notable omissions from the group are Brazil with its Amazon rainforest and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The world is not on track to achieve forest goals of ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, critical for a credible pathway to the 1.5°C Paris Agreement goal, according to a new report by the UN-REDD Programme, UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the Green Gigaton Challenge (GGC). It finds that for the 2030 goals to remain within reach, a one gigaton milestone of emissions reductions from forests must be achieved not later than 2025, and yearly after that. The report, Making good on the Glasgow Climate Pact, finds that current public and private commitments to pay for emissions reductions are only at 24% of the gigaton milestone goal.  Only around half of these commitments have been realized through signed emissions reduction purchase agreements and none of the funding for these commitments has yet been disbursed. 

The European Union is losing its forest carbon sink at an alarming rate, with harvesting for biomass fuel a key driver behind the loss, according to new research released on Monday. EU member states have experienced steep declines in their forest and land carbon sinks since 2002, or have lost them altogether, according to research by the Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI), a non-profit group. To achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the EU has set targets for increased CO2 storage in forests, soils and other land carbon sinks. But at the current rates of decline, most EU countries will fail to reach their 2030 land sink targets, the report warns. …The capacity of European forests to absorb CO2 has been shrinking over the years and needs to be restored, the European Commission admitted two years ago when it presented its climate target plan for 2030. 

The vibes heading into COP27 are not good. There are many reasons that this year’s edition of the United Nations climate summit, which starts on Sunday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, is widely being pre-emptively cast as a failure. …Despite a steady drumbeat of punditry suggesting that ambition to transition off fossil fuels has been replaced by realism about oil and gas remaining essential, during fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine, the evidence points in the other direction. The European Union, dealing with energy shortages as directly as anywhere, offers the best example. While trying to secure new gas supplies …to meet immediate needs, the EU is showing that it sees the situation as cause to hasten its shift toward renewable power… COP’s profile compels world leaders to show up every few years with newly ambitious national emissions-reduction targets, as in Glasgow, though that’s not expected of them at Sharm el-Sheikh.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt  — With the world on “a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” the United Nations chief told dozens of leaders to “cooperate or perish,” on avoiding further climate catastrophe, singling out the two biggest polluting countries, China and the United States. He was not the only one preaching with tones of fire and brimstone, alternating with pathos and tragedy, trying to shake up the world’s sense of urgency at this year’s annual U.N. climate conference. “Choose life over death,” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore urged. “It is not time for moral cowardice.” …El-Sissi, who called for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, was gentle compared to a fiery United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who called for a new pact between rich and poor countries to make deeper cuts in emissions with financial help and phasing out of coal in rich nations by 2030 and elsewhere by 2040.