Forests Should Be Front and Center in Lima #COP20, Part II

So, how is it that utility companies in Europe can get away with claiming offsets without having to verify and validate those claims? Why are they not held to the same globally-recognized set of standards as everyone else? Why do they get to take credit today for an offset that is not likely to accrue for decades into the future, if it even happens at all? Where is the legally-binding agreement to keep the carbon stored in the forest for 100+ years? And, perhaps most disturbing of all, how are the utility companies taking credit for (and reaping the value of) the carbon stored in someone else’s forests without paying the forest owners? This double standard is beyond troublesome.

Forests Should Be Front and Center in Lima #COP20

The longer forests are allowed to grow, the greater the climate benefit. This basic biological fact has given rise to a number of international programs and policies designed to encourage the protection of forests as carbon sinks. In fact, the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, of which many European nations are signatories, has developed a variety of tools and policy frameworks to encourage greater forest conservation.

EPA Misses the Forest for the Trees

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to protect the forests, communities and climate with its new proposed framework for regulating biogenic carbon emissions from stationary sources. They have not followed the recommendations of their own Scientific Advisory Board as well as the mounting government and academic research that burning trees for electricity is going to increase Carbon emissions and accelerate climate change.

New York Declaration on Forests: Where Does Burning Forests for Electricity Fit in? It Doesn’t.

It’s encouraging to see forests emerge as a major point of focus with the release of the New York Declaration on Forests. Since launching the Our Forests Aren’t Fuel campaign last year, I have been scratching my head in disbelief about the contradiction that exists when it comes to global forest climate policies. Over recent years, there has been a suite of initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions from forest loss and degradation, which admittedly accounts for 20% of global carbon emissions. As part of the New York Declaration of Forests, three European nations – UK, Norway and Germany – announced increased global funding for reducing deforestation and increasing forest conservation.

Wood Pellets…The New Coal

You know you’ve effectively gotten the attention of the media when they ask you to speak on a panel about your campaign at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference. On September 7th, I hopped a plane to New Orleans to debate Seth Ginther, the Executive Director of the US Industrial Wood Pellet Association, in front of a roomful of journalists. Over the last few of years, coal burning power plants have been converted to burn wood pellets as a supposedly clean and renewable energy source.