Demand Environmental Standards In Kyoto Protocol

EARTHKEEPING NEWS
A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY

Volume Ten, Number One
November/December 2000

CALL TO ACTION:

This November in the Netherlands, at the sixth conference of the parties (COP6) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, scientists, government and industry representatives and non-governmental organizations, from northern and southern hemispheres, are meeting to review, and hopefully strengthen, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which President Clinton signed but did not submit to the Senate for ratification, requires parties to the Protocol to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to at least 5% below the 1990 level by 2012. A country's efforts to achieve its commitments to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, rewarded by carbon credits, is measured by the difference between the amounts generated from human-induced activities and the amounts removed from the atmosphere by carbon sinks such as agricultural soils and forests.

These reductions must start with the use of fossil fuels, as the major "anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide." In addition, every country, "in order to promote sustainable development," must also "implement policies for the protection and enhancement of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases, and for the promotion of sustainable forest management practices, afforestation and reforestation."

However, the treaty does not require any environmental standards for forest activities. Research has shown that old growth forests store much more carbon dioxide than smaller trees on plantations. And cut logs release the carbon dioxide stored in their wood into the atmosphere. It is not captured in wood products.

Without environmental standards the Kyoto Protocol rules are rewarding the destruction of forests and their conversion to tree plantations. For example, a timber company can replace a naturally regenerated, species-diverse forest with a short rotation monoculture tree plantation, solely for the purpose of chipping the trees and producing biomass fuel as an alternative energy source, thereby gaining carbon credits for offsetting the use of fossil fuels, which it can then sell to another company.

With environmental standards in the Protocol, the carbon credits would go only to activities that benefit both the atmosphere and forest ecosystems, and benefit local communities as well. The administration, which has favored free trade in logging under the WTO, has gone on record to oppose any environmental standards for forest activities under the Kyoto treaty, as has the timber industry. This current US position threatens forests with serious degradation around the world.

The UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol form one of the most important international regimes ever established. In committing industrialized countries to take the lead in addressing their responsibility for climate change, the UNFCCC and Protocol have laid the foundations for a fair solution to a global problem. Without the Kyoto Protocol, the global framework for addressing climate change would be likely to shift towards existing global frameworks and institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Bank, and to an increasing emphasis on market-based approaches with their inherent injustices.

Call President Clinton and your senators to urge ratification of a strengthened Protocol, with environmental standards.