There is a new wave of entrepreneurs aiming to get rich by
saving the rainforests. Richard Lofthouse reports
Ever wanted to get rich by doing absolutely nothing? In a bizarre way that’s what a bunch of new entrepreneurs and large corporations are trying to do. The formula is ridiculously simple: buy up or lease a tract of rainforest, prop up a deckchair and watch it grow. Put a financial price on its mere existence and sell a range of ‘products’ – called ecosystem services – to polluters. If trees could hear, they’d be setting up trade unions.
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Parties have submitted their views on further LULUCF treatment!
Die ersten Länder haben ihre Stellungnahmen zur zukünftigen Behandlung des LULUCF Sektors abgegeben!
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Apr 23, 2009: New study warns that forests are at risk of becoming net sources of carbon instead of net sinks
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Understanding carbon offsets
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July 15, 2009: The UK has released its Low Carbon Transition Plan. The Plan plots out how the UK will meet the cut in emissions set out in the budget of 34% on 1990 levels by 2020.
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Brazil still against REDD - but not against fighting deforestation...While committed to stopping deforestation, Brazil sees a carbon trading scheme as the wrong way to proceed. On climate change mitigation, it wants commitments to reflect historic emissions.A scheme that would allow developed nations to gain carbon credits by supporting forest conservation is on the agenda of the UN conference in Copenhagen this December, but the home country of the Amazon, the world’s largest forest, now turns its thumb down.
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The other black [green] goldIn Brazil’s Amazon basin, farmers have long sought out a special form of fertiliser – a locally sourced compost-like substance prized for its amazing qualities of reviving poor or exhausted soils. They buy it in sacks or dig it out of the earth from patches that are sometimes as much as 6ft deep. Spread on fields, it retains its fertile qualities for long periods.
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Biochar - Menace or Redeemer?Sometimes you have to hand it to capitalism. It’s sheer magic, the way the system takes promising concepts, steeps them in the transformative power of the market – and turns them into howling social and environmental disasters.
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Carbon Trading Scheme Pushing People off Their LandMOUNT ELGON, Uganda, Aug 31 (IPS) - With the world’s attention focused on climate change, one of the methods suggested to reduce global carbon emissions is causing the displacement of indigenous persons as western companies rush to invest in tree-planting projects in developing countries.
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The Ability of World Forests to Capture and Store CarbonNature knows how to capture and store carbon and has been doing so effectively for mellenia. We need this capacity in order to help us resolve the climate crisis we have created.
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Rainforests: Carbon Sink or Carbon Source?Mornings here at La Selva Biological Station, Terry McGlynn counts bugs.
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Opponents have always maintained offset of carbon emissions like this...
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Africa's first CDM forest projectTrees will return to a vast eroded grassland in Uganda as Africa's first Clean Development Mechanism forestry project evolves.
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First developing countries proposals for LULUCF in BangkokAfter nearly two years of developed countries discussing different options for rule changes for this sector, and not getting much farther than more clearly articulating the options that suit each country best, G77 and China said enough is enough and drew a line in the sand:
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Finnish forests may be calculated as sources for carbon after CopenhagenOne model for calculations in climate change negotiations would cause one thousand million euros’ loss for Finnish forestry sector - over half of annual logging revenues. (LULUCF)
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Offset potential from forests hugely overestimatedBolivian flagship project in forest conservation has only achieved 11 percent of its planned carbon offsetting. Greenpeace: A scam.
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Environmental group disputes effectiveness of REDD projectA major private-sector project to reduce carbon emissions through forest management in Bolivia is a ‘scam’, environmental group Greenpeace said in a report released earlier this month. The NGO claims that the environmental and social benefits of the initiative have been grossly oversold, although the project sponsors - along with some other green groups - insist that the efforts have been worthwhile.
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Russia agrees to a deal in Copenhagen – under certain conditionsPrime Minister Vladimir Putin insists that the capacity of Russia’s forests for absorbing carbon dioxide must be taken into account.
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Senegalese NGO plants 34 million mangrovesDAKAR — A Senegalese environmental NGO announced on Friday that it had planted 34 million mangrove trees in three months in a project largely financed by French dairy giant Danone to offset its carbon footprint.
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Is Earth's Capacity To Absorb CO2 Much Greater Than Expected?The research, by Bristol University, suggests that despite rising emissions, the world is is still able to store a significant amount of greenhouse gases in oceans and forests.
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Trees in far north provide biggest climate benefit CHAMPIONS of carbon offsetting may have been barking up the wrong tree. It is generally assumed that the tropics are the best place to plant forests in order to sequester carbon and cool the planet, but a study of the effects of tree planting is casting doubt on this idea.
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Sustainable Forest Management increasingly important for Climate-Change Mitigation Expert-Level Meeting of the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) highlights crucial role of European Forests
FOREST EUROPE: New brand name for the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE)
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Temperate and Boreal Forests - still a considerable carbon sink!A new report states that boreal forests store nearly twice as much carbon as tropical forests per hectare: a fact which researchers say should make the conservation of boreal forests as important as tropical in climate change negotiations.
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As emissions increase, carbon 'sinks' get cloggedWorld's oceans, forests becoming less able to absorb CO2
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South American Environmental Trusts Join Columbia Center to Create Amazon Forest Carbon CreditsFive environmental trust funds in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have joined with Columbia University’s Center for Environment, Economy, and Society to establish the Amazon Forest Carbon Partnership, a collaboration to reduce carbon emissions and provide an economic alternative for forest dwelling communities and commercial enterprises in the Amazon. The issue of forest carbon credit, in which wealthy countries offset their emissions by compensating land holders for preserving forests, was a core point of negotiations at the global climate summit in Copenhagen.
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Firms Partner to Develop Carbon Offsets From Forests in Arkansas, MissouriSAN DIEGO - A California firm and a Missouri company are collaborating to develop carbon offsets from more than 300,000 acres of privately owned forest in the Ozarks Mountains of Arkansas and Missouri.
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Soil contributes to climate warming more than expected - Finnish research shows a flaw in climate modelsFinnish Environment Institute, Finnish Forest Research Institute and the Dating Laboratory of the Finnish Museum of Natural History at the University of Helsinki
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Issue date: Thursday, February 25, 2010 Calculating the value of carbon in treesDelegates at the global climate summit failed to figure out a way to stop the destruction of the world's forests. But some lawmakers think they have a solution, and it relies on financing from some of America's biggest polluters.
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Issue date: Thursday, 25 February 2010 New Zealand leads on forest carbonWhile cap-and-trade legislation stalls in the US and Australia, Copenhagen’s limited progress holds back REDD, and the inflexibilities of the Kyoto Protocol’s CDM keeps a lid on reforestation act
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Nestle Waters (Vittel): Carbon offsetting programmes in PeruNestle Waters France wants to offset emissions from its factories in the west by buying trees in a rainforest thousands of miles away..
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New report from Focus on the Global South: Carbon Offsets & Climate Finance in India
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Forest carbon standards: Full rundownOver the past two years, the voluntary carbon market space has grown and changed rapidly. Independent assessment of carbon projects is now a must for any project developer or retailer of carbon offsets. An array of third-party audit standards has emerged to support the validation of projects and the verification of their emissions reductions for the creation of carbon credits.
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Does Carbon Trading Damage Forests?The World Bank is so concerned about the lack of forests remaining in the small country of Armenia that they have warned that it could one day become a desert.
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The Carbon Hunters was reported by Mark Schapiro, produced by Andres Cediel & co-produced by Daniela Broitman.
STORY SYNOPSIS
In a remote corner of Brazil's Atlantic coast, they say time is a fiction. This ancient forest is seemingly unspoiled by modern life -- beyond the reach of men, machines, and markets.
But a closer look reveals something very different happening here.
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First forest carbon improvement plan approvedUS environmental consultancy EcoTrust has won approval for the first carbon offset project methodology in improved forest management (IFM) under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS). IFM is a relatively new field of carbon crediting activity taking on heightened importance following the widening of the international REDD initiative on deforestation to include forest restoration and sustainable forest management - so called REDD-plus.
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Domestic Offsets in the American Power Act: Preserving the Integrity?
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Land grabs meet climate policyVery interested to see the news today that City of London police have “arrested the director of a Merseyside-based business in connection with an alleged plan to pay Liberian officials $2.5m (£1.7m) in connection
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Carbon sink plans sunk by stalling of emission plan TREE-planting schemes and other carbon-offset projects could be abandoned by organisations at the end of the month, another casualty of the federal government's delayed emissions trading scheme.
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What a difference: Land use change from Farmland to ForestsA dairy farmer planning on growing manuka scrub says Federated Farmers lobbyists are mounting a vocal campaign against the farmer accountability for greenhouse gases, but failing to back landowners who want to "farm" carbon credits.
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Carbon farming will alter land use NEW Zealand’s emissions trading scheme gives this region opportunities to make money, and will change the way marginal land is used.
Carbon sequestering will change the way forests are managed and will make the establishment of unharvestable forests economically viable, two carbon farming experts told landowners, farmers and foresters at a carbon forestry workshop presented yesterday by the University of Canterbury and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
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Emissions scheme could cost NZ up to $5b
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All is not sheepshape on the farmThe sheep industry is fighting for its life as farmers turn to dairying and forestry for better returns. How has it got to this and what can be done?
As much as anyone, John Gregan has worked hard to engineer a revival of sheep farming.
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Minister promises farmers conditions on ETS
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Carbon rules make sequestration hard to trackFARMERS are managing an enormous amount of carbon in their landscapes, but get very little credit for the fact under the current Kyoto greenhouse gas accounting rules.
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NZ: Big ETS pluses for farmersTHE Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) presents unique opportunities for many rural landowners in New Zealand; carbon forestry will allow landowners to use the scheme to their advantage and gain a new income stream.
Marginal farmland throughout the country can be converted into forestry and as long as any conversions are undertaken in an informed manner, landowners potentially have a lot to gain.
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Coal exports to China labelled 'Kyoto hypocrisy'New Zealand's coal exports to China were labelled 'hypocritical' by audience members at a public meeting on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)in Blenheim last night.
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Evidence base for Measuring and Assessing Terrestrial CarbonThe UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as part of the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD Programme), is developing a project to systematically analyze literature on methods used to measure and assess terrestrial carbon stocks, using an evidence-based approach.
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Delivering biochar's triple winLast year, there seemed to be an unwritten rule in enviro-circles: whenever two or more enviro-folks were gathered together in a place of meeting, talk must turn to biochar.
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Worry over foreign "carbon foresters" Foreign-owned "carbon foresters" have ambitions to turn a fifth of New Zealand sheep and beef farmland into forests and that will devastate many rural towns, the national farmers' lobby says.
Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson said the organisation strongly believed that farm forestry was integral to farms where suited. This made the government's axing of the Afforestation Grants Scheme (AGS) in preference to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) "incredibly perplexing".
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Liberia's inquiry into a carbon offsetting deal is a vital step forwardYou report that "a British company's proposal to rent out one-fifth of Liberia's forests for carbon offsetting could have bankrupted the impoverished west African state" (UK firm's carbon offset deal 'could have bankrupted Liberia', 24 July). While this was certainly accurate reporting, it also missed a vital point – that this marks a vital step forward for Liberia.
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Australia mulls foreign-linked carbon offset schemeThe Australian government is proposing to allow foresters and farmers to create carbon offset credits for international sale into foreign emissions trading markets. Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched the policy on the weekend, part of campaigning ahead of a federal election on August 21.
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Could biochar save the world?Biochar—the agricultural application of charcoal produced from burning biomass—may be one of this century's most important social and environmental revolutions. This seemingly humble practice—a technology that goes back thousands of years—has the potential to help mitigate a number of entrenched global problems: desperate hunger, lack of soil fertility in the tropics, rainforest destruction due to slash-and-burn agriculture, and even climate change.
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Let's get serious about soil carbonPOLITICIANS of all persuasions have had a hard time being nice to farmers in ways that don’t upset larger, more vociferous and vindictive sections of the voting public.
In this campaign, they seem to have discovered the key: carbon!
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New Zealand's sheep farmers are flocking to a government carbon trading program that pays more to plant trees than sell wool and mutton.
The system, begun in 2008 and the only one of its kind outside Europe, awards farmers credits that are sold to offset greenhouse gas emissions. The project may earn them about $NZ600 a hectare ($193 per acre) a year on land unprofitable for grazing animals, said David Evison, a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury's New Zealand School of Forestry.
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Gazprom Wins Approval From Voluntary Standards Group for Forestry CreditsGazprom Marketing & Trading, a unit of the world’s largest natural-gas producer, said its method for generating carbon credits from forestry projects was approved by the Voluntary Carbon Standard.
The International Emissions Trading Association and the World Economic Forum helped develop the voluntary carbon standard in 2005 to verify which credits companies can use to comply with carbon-reduction programs. The European Union, which runs the world’s biggest emissions market, may accept a limited number of forestry credits through 2020.
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Chance to see the good for the treesThe much maligned Emissions Trading Scheme can provide even the owners of small forest blocks with a bonus return, if they make the effort to find out, as Peter Watson reports.
Owners of hundreds of small forestry blocks planted in Nelson before 1990 have been warned they risk either being surprised by some large bills or missing out on a one-off windfall if they don't get up to speed soon with the Emissions Trading Scheme.
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Australia firm signs Congo carbon offsets deal(Reuters) - An Australian carbon services firm has signed a deal aimed at protecting tropical forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as boosting renewable energy there, a senior company official said on Wednesday.
Shift2Neutral and its partners would help value the carbon storage from forest and land protection, certify carbon related services to communities in the DRC and help sell certified carbon offsets.
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The US way of rescuing our climate...For individuals and business, air travel is a fact of life. The world is our playground and we are not going to stop exploring new places and opportunities.
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New Zealand Farmers Harvest Carbon CreditsIn New Zealand, where the sheep outnumber humans 9 to 1 and National Lamb Day is celebrated every Feb. 15, a carbon emission trading system that kicked off in July is upending the economics of sheep farming, a once crucial sector of the economy. Sheep farmers are walking away from the business of selling wool and lamb chops and are converting their grazing lands into tree farms that could prove valuable when the country's agricultural sector is forced to pay for greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2015.
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Santa Cruz Mountains redwoods lure cash for trapping carbon
LOMPICO - PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric's) is handing over tens of thousands of dollars to the nonprofit Sempervirens Fund to protect a 425-acre stand of redwoods once slated for logging deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
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The Missionary Position: The export of carbon guilt to the developing worldThe advocates of renewable energy have long chanted a mantra of “green jobs, energy security and lower emissions”, but in country after country we continue to see a fork in the road emerging whereby individual nations are forced to make choices between lowering (global) emissions or developin
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New Zealand: Region a net ETS winnerGISBORNE will be a net winner from the emissions trading scheme, promises Climate Change Minister Nick Smith.
At a well-attended meeting last night, Dr Smith managed to tame a potentially hostile audience through judicious use of the expressions:
“Good question”, “You’re absolutely right” and “That deserves a thorough answer — I’ll answer each point in turn”.
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Updated standard provides new guidance for using forests to address climate changeVersion 3.2 of the Climate Action Reserve’s Forest Project Protocol continues to ensure integrity of forest offset projects
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Forest carbon stores may be massively overestimated Rainforests may store much less carbon than we thought. It could be time to dramatically revise our estimates following the discovery that apparently similar forests hold vastly different amounts of the stuff.
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Is EU changing mind in terms of forest carbon?New rumbling emerged from Europe this week that the potential for emissions-reducing activities involving land use, land-use change, and forestry may be finally getting a d
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Environment Waikato is considering using its $60 millon investment fund for a massive tree planting scheme to cash in on the Government's Emissions Trading Scheme.
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Promote carbon trading - of forest carbon creditsThe Centre should promote a carbon credit trading mechanism on lines of the Kyoto Protocol in the country to enable the plantation industry to earn carbon credits.
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Special report: Money could grow on trees, depending on carbon price
Giving trees a value is one solution for halting deforestation, but deciding how much a forest is worth is proving challenging, reports Sara Schonhardt
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CDM forestry rules need reformThe CDM’s forest carbon rules surrounding eligibility of both land and activity type need to be reformed if the forest sector is going to make its contribution to the climate change mitigation effort, argues Dr Promode Kant of India’s Institute of Green Economy:
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EU set to overshoot its Kyoto emission targetsA large fall in greenhouse gas emissions brought about by a reduction of industrial activity led by the economic crisis has put the EU on a fast track to meet its Kyoto commitments, but Austria, Denmark and Italy are falling behind, according to new figures.
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Forests soak up carbon, but for how long?MISSOULA, Mont. - U.S. forests offset roughly 11 percent of the nation's industrial greenhouse gas emissions, storing "significant amounts" of carbon that would otherwise pollute the atmosphere, according to new government data.
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World Bank pays $4 for forest CERsAfrica’s first significant CDM forest carbon project has attracted a price of $US4 per tonne in temporary CER (tCER) carbon credits, according to a media report. The World Bank will buy the credits for half the carbon stored up to 2017 from an Ethiopian forestry project, the Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project.
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NZ Forestry credits off to JapanA major Japanese bank has come back for a second helping of New Zealand forestry credits. The deal, finalised last week, is being seen as a positive step in the developing international market for New Zealand’s forestry credits.
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Interior West Forests on Verge of Becoming Net Carbon EmitterForests in the Interior West could soon flip from carbon sink to carbon source, forest experts say.
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Trade-offs and synergies between carbon storage and livelihood benefits from forest commonsForests provide multiple benefits at local to global scales. These include the global public good of carbon sequestration and local and national level contributions to livelihoods for more than half a billion users.
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Trees planted in China to neutralize carbon emissions of UN conference
Shanxi, Dec. 28, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- A newly planted forest will neutralize carbon dioxide emissions from a UN climate change conference as China ups its efforts to combat climate change, an official said here Tuesday.
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Carbon lab project in Suriname(De Ware Tijd) – In January, construction will start of a so-called ‘carbon lab’ at the premises of Berg en Dal on the Suriname River.
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Lakes a big source of climate-warming gas: study
(Reuters) - Lakes and rivers emit far more of a powerful greenhouse gas than previously thought, counteracting the overall role of nature in soaking up climate-warming gases, a study showed on Thursday.
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CDM is a work in progress: UN climate chief
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Study Compares Carbon Benefits of Forest Management Practices in Oregon
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ETS 'big opportunity' for farmers
Wanganui hill country farmers have a massive opportunity to use the Emissions Trading Scheme to get a return from their marginal land, Pat Hawinkels says.
"Internationally, the market for carbon is huge and it will just get bigger."
People registering their forests in the Emissions Trading Scheme get money for growing trees, which store carbon.
Registering for the scheme was only complex the first time, he said, and for some the money would keep a marginal farm viable.
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Australia can meet carbon targets by land offsets: report
A new report on Thursday said Australia can meet its carbon emissions target by doing nothing more than claiming offsets from re-vegetation of cleared land, regional forest agreements and ending logging of native forests.
Australia has set its target of a 5 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020, and the study said the federal government has deliberately underestimated these land offsets to justify a weak target in international negotiations.
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Govt: `Forest investors` grabbing villagers` land
The government yesterday expressed concern over the increasing wave of investors illegally buying large chunks of land from villagers for forest farming and management, apparently to engage in carbon trade.
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What forestry can do for climate change policy
Growing trees is nature’s way of absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. So most would assume that the forest industry would be front and centre of the government’s climate change policy. They’d be wrong.
The government’s carbon price to be introduced from July 2012 will rightly focus on the big emitters but will provide next to no incentives for growth in Australia’s sustainable forest industry – which absorbs and stores carbon from the atmosphere.
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Carbon storage and forest fire influences in tropical rainforests
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New global carbon map for 2.5 billion ha of forests
Tropical forests across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia stored 247 gigatons of carbon — more than 30 years' worth of current emissions from fossil fuels use — in the early 2000s, according to a comprehensive assessment of the world's carbon stocks.
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North America's largest forest carbon project launches, sells $4-million in credits
The Nature Conservancy of Canada is receiving more than $4-million in what it says is the largest forest carbon project to date in North America and the first deal of its kind in Canada.
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Philippine forest project gets carbon credits
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Trees for crops 'will not halt warming' PARIS: Schemes to convert croplands, or marginal lands, to forests will make almost no inroads on global warming this century, a new scientific study says.
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PG&E carbon offsets come from protected forests
California's largest utility promises its customers green salvation through its ClimateSmart program.
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A PROPOSAL to keep Tasmania's native forests standing in exchange for billions in carbon credits has been rejected by the State Government, Liberal Opposition and Forestry Tasmania.
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First Growth Commences Carbon Projects in West Papua Indonesia Breaking News www.theindonesiatoday.comTheindonesiatoday.com - First Growth Funds Limited group reports its joint venture with Greencollar Group (GCS), First Growth Forests (FGFJV), has commenced the world’s first program to develop forestry carbon projects for the whole of a province in West Papua.
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Der Wald als CO2-"Staubsauger"Der Wald ist ein deutlich größerer CO2-Speicher als bisher angenommen. Zwischen 1990 und 2007 hat er aktuellen Berechnungen zufolge rund ein Drittel des Kohlenstoffs, der in dieser Zeit durch die Verwendung fossiler Brennstoffe freigesetzt wurde, geschluckt.
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A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s ForestsYude Pan, Richard A. Birdsey, Jingyun Fang, Richard Houghton, Pekka E. Kauppi, Werner A. Kurz, Oliver L. Phillips, Anatoly Shvidenko, Simon L. Lewis, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Stephen Pacala, A.
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Workshop to determine land eligibility for project development under Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of UNFCCC and Voluntary Carbon Standards (VCS)The workshop to determine land eligibility for project development under Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of UNFCCC and Voluntary Carbon Standards (VCS) will be held at the Park Hotel, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India on August 11, 2011.
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Concern Over Stalled Forest Carbon ProjectNearly a year after an agreement involving the Federal Government and a duo of environmental management firms was finalised, fears are being expressed over the prospects of the accord, which appears to be mired.
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Forests soak up third of fossil fuel emissions: studyARIS — Forests play a larger role in Earth's climate system than previously suspected for both the risks from deforestation and the potential gains from regrowth, a benchmark study released Thursday has shown.
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Kibale National Park rehabilitation projectLocated in southwest Uganda, the Kibale National Park (KNP) is one of the last remaining tropical forest blocks in the country. It harbours the greatest variety and concentration of primates found anywhere in East Africa and is home to at least 350 tree species. Despite the park’s ecological value, deforestation and historic consumptive use of the park have contributed to significant deterioration of KNP’s forest and its biodiversity over the past 30 years.
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Japan revises its forest law to boost carbon sequestrationJapan has brought about changes in its Forests and Forestry Basic Plan under Forests Act (1964) with specific focus on carbon sequestration.
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