Climate, Biodiversity, and Forests - Issues and Opportunities Emerging from the Kyoto Protocol (WRI, 1998, 40 pages): Introduction: (introduction...)

Climate, Biodiversity, and Forests - Issues and Opportunities Emerging from the Kyoto Protocol (WRI, 1998, 40 pages)

(introduction...)

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

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Getting to Kyoto

Kyoto Protocol Overview

Synergies Between Climate Mitigation and Biodiversity Conservation

Unresolved Issues That Impede Capturing Climate and Biodiversity Benefits

Generic Issues Associated with Forests and Land-Use Change in The Kyoto Protocol

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Forests as a Distraction from Reducing Energy-Related Emissions

Forest Options Could Become a Loophole

The Possibility of Negative Environmental Impacts

The Question of Property Rights

Threats to National Sovereignty

The Treatment of Forests and Land-Use Change in Industrialized Countries

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Current Protocol Rules for Domestic Inventories of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Forests and Land-Use Change

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The 1990 Base Year

The 2008-2012 Commitment Period

The 1990-2008 Interim Period

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Guidelines for Domestic Inventories of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Forests and Land-Use Change

Defining and Tracking Deforestation

What Is Left Uncounted in National Inventories?

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Forest Harvest and Management

Forest Degradation

Storage in Wood Products

Forest Fires

Soil Carbon

Methods for Including Additional Activities Under Domestic Inventories

The Treatment of Forests and Land-Use Change Under the Market Mechanisms for Reductions Between Developed Countries

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Project-Based Credit Trading

Emissions Trading

The Role of Forests and Land-Use Change in Developing Countries

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The Clean Development Mechanism

Project Eligibility

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Forest Harvest and Management

Carbon Stored in Wood Products

Forest Conservation

Improving Agricultural Productivity

Fire Suppression

Contributing Elements for a Successful CDM

Technical Concerns Associated with Measuring and Verifying Forest and Land-Use Change Emissions and Reductions

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Establishing a Reference Case

Leakage

Permanence of Reductions

Measurement Accuracy

Recommendations

Glossary

Notes

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For more than a decade, the community of nations has engaged in a difficult and crucial debate that has set the framework for international efforts to reduce the risk of climate change into the next century. That debate took a significant new turn in December 1997, when nations met in Kyoto, Japan, to forge a follow-on Protocol to the original 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Kyoto Protocol marks the first international agreement to place legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions from developed countries but leaves many issues to be resolved in future negotiations.

One of the most important areas yet to be resolved concerns how much of a role forests and land-use change will play under the Kyoto Protocol. They are both a part of the problem and of the solution of climate change. Saving or increasing forest cover, particularly of old-growth forests, stores carbon, thus keeping it out of the atmosphere and slowing global warming. Conversely, the global loss of forests plays a significant role in increasing the risks of climate change. Forest conversion has contributed an estimated 30 percent of the atmospheric buildup in carbon dioxide.¹

This report focuses on the ways in which forests and land-use change can both exacerbate and mitigate climate change. It identifies the opportunities the Protocol presents regarding the conservation, improved management, and restoration of forests and considers some of the reasons the issue has

proven controversial. Finally, the paper highlights key future decisions that will determine whether these opportunities are seized and examines how these decisions can be made to work for climate, forests, and biodiversity.