People the losers from tree politics
POZNAN, POLAND: "This is the best selling book of the conference," said Andrew Mitchell, brandishing a small red volume, when I bumped in to him on the fringes of a fairly loud demonstration.
Andrew is director of the Global Canopy Programme - that's "canopy" as in forests, not as in tents - and a leading light in the movement to reward people in developing countries for looking after the tracts of forest that ameliorate atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide by processing it into oxygen.
The book is the Little Redd Book. It's not to be confused with the Little Red Book that Mao Zedong was reputed to carry almost everywhere, although as both purport to be distillations of wisdom on their chosen topic, you could perhaps see a parallel.
Redd with two Ds - or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation - is the hot property in climate change this year.
The problem with being a hot property, as Lewis Hamilton or Britney Spears might testify, is that everyone wants a piece of you.
Governments that stand to gain financially certainly want a piece of it - notwithstanding any genuine desire they might have to do something about the atmosphere's carbon dioxide levels. So do the companies that can see profits in the trading and consulting and monitoring that will go into a final package; and so do the indigenous peoples who were protesting as I chatted to Andrew.
The book is a compendium of the various proposals on Redd which have been submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the body that will eventually work out a set of rules on the issue.
Sixteen governments, three regional blocs and 13 non-governmental organisations have sent in proposals; and now, one of the UNFCCC's subsidiary bodies is thrashing through the various notions and trying to come up with a text that everyone can live with.
The proposals differ in several ways. How should finance be raised - through the buying and selling of credits, through mechanisms linked with but not part of the carbon market, or through voluntary funds? Should money be awarded nationally or locally?
Should the baseline for measuring deforestation be a historical one; and if so, what should be the date? If avoiding degradation is to be included, how should it be defined and measured?
And what, precisely, should be rewarded - the preservation of forests or the storage of carbon, which are not precisely the same thing?
Any combination of these parameters will provide bigger or smaller wins for the countries saving their trees. So politics enters the fray, just as it did during the long years after 1997 that negotiators spent trying to establish a rulebook for the Kyoto Protocol, when nations haggled long and hard over the precise definition of a tree.
So Costa Rica wants deforestation to be measured against a 1990 baseline - the same year against which greenhouse gas emissions are measured in the UN system. But Costa Rica has already done very well in protecting its forest, and therefore stands to gain from those years of protection.
Brazil wants rewards for slowing deforestation, as measure against a historical rate. But India argues this unfairly rewards "countries with historically high deforestation rates" - subtext, "unfairly rewards Brazil" - because all it has to do is make a bad thing a bit less bad.
And so on, and so on. Andrew has put the Little Redd Book [pdf link] on the web, so you can peruse it at your leisure.
And the indigenous groups? Well, they were protesting against the removal of language from the working text that recognised the rights of indigenous forest dwellers.
"We are only asking for that the Redd text recognises the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," declaimed Tom Goldtooth, a US activist of Navajo and Lakota descent.
"We stand with our brothers and sisters in the forested regions in asking for a suspension of the Redd process."
They accused in particular Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US of scratching out the key words.
Andrew Mitchell was sympathetic. "Redd is one of the greatest opportunities to save the world's tropical forests, and to exclude people who spend their lives living in the forest and protecting the forest just seems perverse."
Maybe the text will go back in - maybe not. But the issue does illustrate how complex and politicised an apparently simple idea can become - sorry, scratch that, how complex it does become - once 190-odd countries start using it as a football.
Forests are not just carbon stores. They are home to people, and to animals and ecosystems. They provide and regulate fresh water, create local climates, protect huge tracts of land.
Ideally, I suppose, the Redd discussions should take all of these factors into account. If you're rewarding a country's forest protection because it stores carbon, why not also reward it for protecting monkey habitat, or safeguarding the watershed of a river that will irrigate fields downstream, or keeping indigenous cultures alive - always provided that you think those are good things, of course?
But that would make things even more complex, and more politicised. Then the wood really would start to obscure the trees.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~47~RS~)
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Every tonne of carbon stored as forest is precious so I feel that every tonne of intact forest should be given a constant value (based on habitat type / average stored carbon).
The income a country received each year could then be reduced for every tonne of emissions produced as of deforestation or alternatively peak a country's rainforests were left in their living / functional state and/or restored.
The challenge is to get the rich world to provide a cash fund without too much meddling in the national sovereignty of developing nations, beyond the protection of forests and the monitoring of deforestation.
At present, very little of the world's conservation / carbon funding reaches effective field projects, as most of it is sucked up by expensive offices and staff in rich countries. This also needs to change.
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I haven't read the 'Little Redd Book' yet, but from a practical standpoint, the article reminds me of anecdotes about the European CAP, which first paid farmers to grow food that wasn't wanted, but then paid them again to not grow the same food.
In other words, "reward for doing nothing" and also a bureaucrat's charter.
Bureaucratic wastefulness is almost as bad as willful neglect in my book.
Also, I'm not convinced about the longer term moral and ethical issues of paying someone to "not do bad things".
Every day, I get up and do not commit murder. I don't expect to be payed for it, and I would be disturbed about the consequences if someone proposed to do so.
I'm sorry not to be able to sound more positive, but these are difficult issues.
In the current economic climate I'm sure that that many such suggestions will get short shrift anyway.
It might, however, be a great time to make the case for good long term investments, and I mean REAL investments such as energy efficiency (insulation, heat pumps etc). Not glamorous, but uncontroversial and effective.
If the coming economic recession/ depression is as bad as many commentators are afraid of, this could generate employment in the short term, wealth in the long term, and do as much for the environment as nuclear power could.
(But I'm not going to 'go there' at the moment! :)
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I have a passion for trees since my youth - I'm now 62. I enjoyed it's texture and appearnce so much I took up Marquetry as a hobby when 14. Trouble was, I was a lousy handcrafter so I became an engineer instead working for industries that simly consumes peoples lives as easily as our precious resources.
I'm no climatic expert but I think that's better than being a 'textbook' expert. I'm not convinced we [the human species] are the dominant driving force for Natures own forces are far more powerful. For sure we'll make 'an effect'. For that reason I'm negative that we can do much about it at all but as I walk amidst the large forests in Germany, now my 'home', I look at the potential 'fuel - burn- capture - fuel' cycle that trees offer. And with around half the calorific value of many mined coals, along with their simple harvesting, outweighs the advantages of any other fuel resource we could ever imagine.
Yep! Trees simply does it for me!
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With any discussion about the environment in the context of Global Warming, what is constantly missed is the Elephant in the room. In not too many years we will be going through massive and unpredictable changes causing disruption to everybody.
I know there are lots of people who deny MMGW (there are also people who refuse to accept man has landed on the moon etc.) they should be just an irritating irrelvance but for the damage they do in convincing many people to do nothing.
My view is that we need to do anything and everything to reduce the impact. The sooner we start the longer we put off the point where we are considering military measures rarther than economic measures such as funding the preservation of forest cover.
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It's strange that FawltyPower's doubts that the power of human activities can match those of nature, given that he enjoys walking through man-made German forests and landscapes, which are the product of century's of human modification.
Humans make as much nitrogen as the natural nitrogen cycle so why can't our burning of millions of year's worth of fossil fuels each year disrupt the natural carbon cycle?
With 6 billion humans undertaking so many activities it is not surprising that he cannot see the impacts with his own eyes or join the dots associated with complex global change, but that doesn't mean the trends aren't real and measurable using scientific methods.
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Surely there are more pressing issues to discuss than the non event that is MMGW.
To concern ourselves with mild deforestation when there are millions of people dying each year of malnutrition and disease due to a lack of food, contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation is, quite frankly, disgraceful.
These are scientifically proven problems with fairly simple and affordable remedies yet we continue to prattle on about an unproven link between global temperatures and CO2 emissions.
We have reporters flying around the globe to report on the latest jolly by politicians and environmentalists, all the while several thousand more children will have died from malaria.
Lets get our priorities right for once!
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happy_redfails to see the connection between MMGW and malnutrition and disease. A connection that will grow as impoverishment of soils and climactic change stemming from MMGW leads to diminishing food production. And at the same time the human population will continue to grow.
Of course, it is arguable that this head-in-the sand approach will ultimately solve the crisis of over-population and over-consumption of resources, as it will lead to wholesale famine, a mass migration of peoples, wars over ever scarce resources (esp. water), an inevitable huge reduction in human numbers and the probable total collapse of the world economy, taking us to a world-wide subsistence state in an impoverished and denuded world.
That is one answer I suppose.
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Yes: children dying of malnutrition are an important issue, milions of people without clean water also ...
My own belief is that we should see how to minimise our use of non renewable resources, even if there was not the Damocles Sword of global climate changes hovering over us, just because they are "non renewable" ... sooner or later we will have to do without them, anyhow! So better sooner than later.
Nevertheless I am surprised that discussions on trees and woods are seen as "not pressing" ...
Forests influence precipitation and make for good catchment areas, setting better conditions to have good water.
Climate change is seen also from African countries, as a threat to food production, as I understand from more than one entry in the pages of the ACP (the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States)
http://www.acp.int/
for instance, in this resolution from 2007
"Calls on the ACP and EU countries to put climate change at the heart of
strategic development policy and address the global warming threat to food
production, which a UN report predicted would fall by 5% by 2080, while
between 25% and 40% of Africa's natural habitats could also be lost, and 30% of
its coastal infrastructure destroyed; "
Trees and forests are linked with food production, water supply and infrastructure (if you don't want to think about climate change, think for instance about the risk of erosion in lack of woods)
I'm interested in what is happening in Poland! I'm not able to be there, I appreciate these information!
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Hi
just read on your article about cutting emissions to 1990 levels -
"Globally, he said, about two billion people use wood as their primary fuel; and switching them all to locally-made efficient stoves would cost about $6bn."
$6bn works out at ~$1 per person in the world - assuming this is a one-off cost, it isn't so big (those of us in the first world could pay this several times over and not notice the next day). I'm also interested to compare this sum with the amounts "given" by governments to cover the current financial downturn.
Don't know how relevant this is...
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Borisnorris
happy_red has not failed to see the connection as happy_red believes that MMGW is a myth. This is not due to a 'head in the sand' approach, but due to many years of reading about the subject.
Because I don't follow the apocalyptic doomsayers that are the current environmental evangelists, does not mean that there aren't real and present issues to be dealt with.
Wholesale famine is happeneing right now, and has nothing to do with MMGW but more to do with the power struggles throughout Africa and other 3rd world areas. People die of malaria due to environmental groups having DDT banned (once we had successfully eradicated malaria from the western world).
To focus on a mythical future problem instead of dealing with a massive current problem staring us all in the face is just 'plain stupid'. MMGW is a political, not a scientific issue and will fade away very shortly. Sadly, many real issues are being overlooked.
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hrp1000
Excellent point, and well put. For minimal cost to the western world, we could provide clean drinking water, food and combat disease in the 3rd world.
Alternatively, we can continue to place the emphasis on MMGW and spend vast sums achieving nothing along the lines of carbon trading and other Kyoto-like white elephants.
I know which way my conscience will take me.
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The world's poor rely on a healthy and stable environment / climate more than anyone, especially in countries where 80% or more of the population are farmers, so you cannot really choose one and ignore the other.
Malaria definitely deserves to be comprehensively addressed, as does clean water, but we shouldn't use these problems as excuses to ignore the threat posed by climate change.
The big problem with many international events, such as Poznan, is that the large vested interests, both national and corporate, have shut down the debate as much as they can and refused to sacrifice any of their advantage for the greater good.
Mosquito nets could and should be distributed for free, rehydration packs should be ubiquituous and energy efficiency should be the norm. It's not rocket science or expensive.
It's all technologically feasible and financially sensible to do a huge amount, it's just that nobody seems to find the simple things, which work, exciting enough to actually do.
They would rather chase the illusory white heat of cutting edge technology and spend money on themselves.
Finally, a great deal of international travel is for nothing more than leisure, no matter how much fun it is, so I find it hard to begrudge people travelling to discuss and report on the world's most pressing problems.
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I know this is the wrong forum, Richard, but something you said in your last artical, caused me concern and I wanted to make sure you read this. What you said was:
"my job is not to advocate this or that course of action but to report on the subject as best I can"
So why don't you report on ClimateAudit.org showing that Mann has his data wrong and why don't you report the many FOI requests for John Mitchell to reveal his correspondance with the IPCC that are refused? Further information can be found on the Climate Audit blogsite, if you want to view the details.
I'm sorry, Richard, but until you report on these matters impartially, I don't think you can call yourself impartial. I would even go further and suggest by not giving balance (not necessarily 50/50 balance), that you are yourself an activist / campaigner.
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Perhaps you could also comment why the BBC's Climate Wars programme gleefully embraced Manns latest Hockey Stick, but nowhere, afaik, have the BBC published the findings of Climate Audit, which shows exactly the same errors as his 98/99 papers and compounds the errors by confusing Spain and Africa introducing artifical warming in Africa
The BBC is clearly biased in this discussion, even to the extent of using subliminal techniques to suggest that sceptics are wrong, such as Climate Wars saying "In this debate there are winners (cue picture of photogenic climate scientist) and losers (cue picture of not so photogenic sceptic)"
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"so you cannot really choose one and ignore the other."
Unless of course MMGW is a perceived problem rather than a real problem such as those discussed. Please don't try and change it's name to 'climate change' as this is the normal state of climate - it is never static - and is an obvious acceptance that anthropogenic global warming does not exist, except in the computer models of certain organisations.
There is plenty that can be done cheaply and easily to combat malnutrition, disease and poverty. It is not 'in vogue' to do so. And so we find ourselves spending vast sums creating conferences and chasing the illusory white heat of technology that is wave, solar and wind power and a system of carbon trading. None of which will make a blind bit of difference to anyone at any time now or in the future.
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I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Richard and the BBC more generally for their coverage of the MMCC/AGW/MMGW issue (see, the labels really aren’t important!). Having started out sceptical but having read up on the topic, I would say that your coverage is balanced and that you are largely justified in ignoring the so-called ‘sceptics’ as the weight of peer-reviewed research does massively support MMCC/AGW/MMGW. Selectively picking up on Mann’s hockey-stick as though it is central to the whole case (it isn’t, that are plenty of other sources that demonstrate the recent warming), or claiming the case is dependent on computer models (it isn’t, the observational evidence alone is convincing enough) is simple obfuscation. Basic physics cannot be denied – more CO2 means more heat retained.
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At the risk of repeating myself, many of the papers that support the Hockey Stick use much of the same suspect data and are peer reviewed by the same people (refer to Wegman for details of the peer review groups incestuous relationships and Pielke for details of the controversy). By choosing which data to include / exclude to support the case of the Hockey Stick and denying the existence of the MWP, clearly undermines the science behind the data (Pielke). By screwing up the statistical analysis of the data (Wegman), clearly demonstrates a misunderstanding of statistical analysis. The IPCC and the BBC parade the Hockey Stick as proof of MMGW, despite there being much evidence against the validity of the analysis, and it is therefore central to the argument, although not the whole argument. By removing the MWP, deliberately or in error, Mann etc try to prove temperatures are at their highest in 1000 years or more.
Computer models are neither sophisticated enough nor powerful enough to model the earth’s atmosphere and rely on parameters for the things that are too small to include in the models or that we don’t understand (clouds etc). The atmosphere is currently too complex to model. If it were possible, why didn’t they predict the recent downward trend? Don’t say there hasn’t been a downward trend over the last decade or just because there has been a downward trend, it doesn’t mean it’s not still warming. If the models were accurate, they would have been able to predict the downward trend of the last decade.
CO2, the very substance of life, without which the plants would die and so would the rest of us, is the cause of global warming? A doubling of CO2 causes 2.5C rise in temperature (Hansen) or is it 1C (IPCC)? So why is the downward trend occurring? Or is that without man made emissions it would be even colder? I accept that in a greenhouse CO2 can cause the temperature to rise, but the earth is not a greenhouse and nor is it a test-tube. The earth does not trap its heat inside glass, but radiates heat out into space.
So what caused recorded temperatures to rise towards the end of the 20th century? I’ve no idea, but I suspect it was a combination of natural factors, some man made contributions more likely to be land use change than CO2, poor siting / changes to the weather stations and the quality of the data produced. NASA have already admitted that they don’t check the anomaly data, because, they say, they are under resourced! So no quality control at NASA then.
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“Brazil wants rewards for slowing deforestation” They want what? I’ll accept paying to protect existing forest, but pay to cut down less this year than last? I don’t think so.
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Thanks for all your comments on this post. thefrogstar, you’ve put your finger on one of the main reasons why this idea was originally excluded from the Kyoto Protocol. It’s only recently that industrialised countries have come round to the view that stopping deforestation would be the cheapest way of ameliorating the rise in carbon dioxide levels, and decided they should overcome their earlier objections.
hrp1000, I was struck, like you, by the relatively small amount of money involved here, if the analysis is right. If it is, I think the UN Clean Development Mechanism ought to be a good way of funding the deployment of these stoves. Improving the CDM is supposed to be one of the outcomes of this conference; we’ll see.
CuckooToo, this blog definitely isn’t about how journalism works (or doesn’t work, depending on your point of view) – that would need at least another forum, and to be honest I hope the workings or failings of the BBC are a long way from being the most interesting things we have to discuss here. So I’ll point you to a couple of things that went on our site late last year – the series of articles I did on ‘climate scepticism’ (that link goes to one, and you can find all the others linked from there), and the Editor’s Blog entry about the same. And noelle_hughes34, what can I say but ‘thank you'.
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Hi Richard
Thanks for your response. My apologies, I had missed your articles.
Having read them, I must say that I particularly like your "In praise of scepticism". You are of course right that this type of debate should not be held on blogs. Wegman also pointed this out in his damning report on Manns paper and his the peer review group. But given the following, from this mornings Today programme on Radio 4, it is easy to understand why blogs are playing a significant role in getting over the sceptics message. To quote Professor Benner:
"...the commercialisation of science funding and said peer review was leading to mediocre science."
My understanding is applications for research funding are a written proposal, which is then discussed amongst a peer group, who decide whether or not to back the project. If the peer group doesn't like the sound of the proposal then funding is refused.
Given that the "consensus" amongst scientists if global warming is man-made, is it not more likely that precious resources are refused for studies that contradict AGW and scientists who disagree with the consensus have to find alternative funding or, indeed, look to blogs?
Many science journals are more likely to publish articles that support AGW, because of the editors views rather than the validity of the article. Why can't the journals, publish the peer reviewed article and wait for a pro-AGW scientist to point out where the article is incorrect?
Personally, I think Mann and McIntyre should be forced to work together and really see if the Hockey Stick is real or not, but given that Mann refuses to hand over any of his data until threatened with action under the FOIA, then I guess this will never happen.
One thing I do wish is that journalists, such as yourself, would publish alternative views alongside the "consensus" view. Perhaps the BBC should produce something similar to climatedebatedaily to give viewers a chance to decide for themselves?
OK, that's it, apologies once again for missing your previous articles.
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Happy_red. Your denial of MMGW goes against logic and rationality.
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