A report just launched by the Terrestrial Carbon Group makes an important contribution to the global climate change debate. The authors include dozens of eminent scientists, economists and public policy specialists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Tim Flannery. The report comes just in time for the next round of international negotiations – to be held in Poznan, December 2008 – which will advance the agenda for a post-Kyoto agreement.
Due to the protracted and bureaucratic nature of the negotiations to date, the authors argue there is a messy and confusing array of inclusions and exclusions in the current global governance response to climate change. Consequently, a significant part (25%) of the climate change solution has been largely neglected: the terrestrial system. The terrestrial system includes forests, soil, agricultural land and peats.
The terrestrial system not only stores carbon but it also sucks carbon out of the atmosphere. Thus, avoided deforestation and other land use decisions can limit the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Moreover, expanding the terrestrial system gives greenhouse gas emissions a safe place to go.
The dynamics of population growth mean that land in developing countries will come under increasing pressure to satisfy human consumption needs. Concomitant rises in commodity prices will make land production expansion even more attractive to poor countries. With this in mind, the task of avoiding dangerous climate change becomes extremely difficult unless, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emission outputs, the next climate change agreement also maximises terrestrial carbon volumes.
The Terrestrial Carbon Group report proposes a market solution which maps a nation’s terrestrial carbon into two categories: protected and tradable. The report highlights how developing countries like Indonesia could profit from trading terrestrial carbon credits (which would also increase the willingness of developing countries to participate in a global scheme) and asserts that any global agreement which does not include terrestrial carbon will not efficiently contribute to long-term climate change mitigation.
