Ways to stop the Earth from overheating are far from easy

By Charlie Pye-Smith,

ENGLAND (JP): Indigenous Mayan villages in Chiapas, in southern Mexico, have discovered a new cash crop. It certainly won't bring them the riches that gold brought earlier Amerindian civilizations, but it should give them a new source of income. Next to their fields of beans and maize they are planting trees. Not, as you might expect, for timber -- although they will yield that too -- but for the environmental services they provide.

The Mayans are being paid to grow trees by a French Formula One racing consortium. By soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the trees are helping to offset the pollution which spews out of the consortium's cars on the world's race tracks.

This is an unlikely tale, but strange partnerships such as this could soon become more common. In theory, a trade in carbon, based on growing trees and protecting forests, could help reduce global warming and channel cash from polluting companies to communities in the developing world. The Indonesian government is in favor of such a trade, and scientists at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor are currently investigating what this could mean both for forests and local communities.

The problem can be simply stated: the Earth seems to be heating up. The nine warmest years on record have all occurred during the past 11 years, and there are fears that if the trend continues, global warming could cause significant changes in weather patterns, and may lead to rising sea levels. The main suspect is carbon dioxide, released largely as a result of the burning of fossil fuels in the developed world.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries undertook to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Most of the reduction will come from switching to cleaner fuels and the more efficient use of energy. But the protocol also paved the way for joint ventures between North and South by setting up the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), under which polluting countries, or companies, will be able to get "credits" by funding projects which sequester carbon, or reduce emissions, in developing countries. Let's say the Japanese government demands that a utility reduces its carbon emissions by 1000 tons a year. If the utility funds projects in Indonesia that soak up 500 tons a year, then it is halfway to meeting the target.

At present, nobody knows whether forest projects will be eligible for CDM deals, and this will be one of the key issues to be decided when parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change meets in the Hague in November.

Ken MacDicken, a forest scientist at CIFOR, argues that forests should be eligible, and he has been involved in pilot projects in South America. In Bolivia, for example, an American coal-fired utility has provided funds to protect a vast chunk of forest and lock up 16.5 million tons of carbon over 30 years. MacDicken, who helped do the sums, believes the project makes good sense. Trapping carbon in Bolivia is cheaper, at present, then installing emission-reducing equipment in the States, so the utility gains. The project provides funds for both the Bolivian government and for people who live in the forest. Nature benefits too.

"If projects are well designed," says MacDicken, "we've got a win-win situation. Forest projects alone won't solve climate change problems, but they could help reduce carbon levels."

Sounds sensible enough? No, say environmental groups like Greenpeace, who see this as an excuse for industrialized nations to continue polluting. What matters, in their view, is reducing pollution at source. But they also fear that including forest projects in this CDM would reward the least deserving. For example, some people have suggested that in countries like Indonesia, where fire causes major forest losses, CDM money could be used to pay plantation companies not to set fire to the forests. That, say the environmentalists, would be "greenmail".

Aware of these difficulties, CIFOR and the University of Maryland recently invited 24 carbon scientists, foresters and policy makers, including Indonesia's deputy environment minister, to Bellagio, Italy. Together they produced a policy brief which they hope will influence negotiations in the Hague. Their key message is: forest projects which sequester carbon could be designed and managed in such a way as to improve local livelihoods.

"To many communities, forests are extremely valuable," says CIFOR economist Joyotee Smith. "They provide fuel, fruit, rattan and much else, but often these people have no formal rights to the forests." This means they could easily be excluded from forest-carbon deals. For example, if a utility agreed to pay for a logging concession not to be logged, payments might go to the concession holders. Villagers who traditionally use the forests could be excluded. "That's the sort of thing we must avoid," says Smith.

Strict

The Bellagio policy brief calls for strict project guidelines. Whenever possible, local communities should be involved in setting up and managing projects, and projects which provide multiple benefits -- by conserving wildlife, yielding sustainable timber and providing jobs -- should be favored above those that don't. The process of setting up agreements will inevitably be time consuming when local communities are involved, and the policy brief suggests that the costs could be lowered by using intermediary bodies which specialize in this sort of project development.

At the Hague, the Indonesian government will back calls to include forest projects in the Clean Development Mechanism. But Daniel Murdiyarso, a participant at Bellagio and director of the Bogor-based Global Change Impacts Centre for Southeast Asia, believes policy makers should proceed with caution.

"At present we simply haven't got the right institutional arrangements in place," he says. He is particularly concerned about the possibility of "leakage": protecting forests in one area might lead to more forest destruction elsewhere. "We need to start with small projects," he suggests. For example, CDM money could be used for community forestry projects.

Joyotee Smith agrees that forest projects will not suit every country. "But the great thing about including them in this CDM," she says, "is that they would be voluntary. In places where they can be made to work, where policies and institutions are favorable and projects are well designed, they should bring benefits both to local people and to the forests." And at the same time they should help to soak up some of the carbon that is heating up the planet.

-- The writer is a freelance journalist, based in England.