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Pricing emissions from farming, logging could shift land use towards conservationmongabay.comFebruary 15, 2009 "Without valuing the carbon in land, we risk losing large swaths of unmanaged ecosystems to agricultural crops and biofuels," said Leon Clarke of the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration between the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland. Speaking Friday, Clark said that if climate policy aims to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, it must factor in all sources of emissions, including those from land use. Land use — including deforestation, degradation of forests and other ecosystems, and agriculture — accounts for roughly one-third of global emissions. Such emissions can be reduced through processes that enhance soil carbon as well as reforestation and cutting deforestation.
Clark's presentation touched on a delicate question that is still unresolved: how will climate policy address emissions from land use? The U.N. and other entities are presently evaluating mechanisms that would compensate developing countries for reducing emissions for deforestation but some conservationists fear that these policies will be used by agroindustrial firms and forestry companies to subsidize their operations. Since there is presently no "penalty" for their emissions, they may continue to clear and convert forest lands but seek carbon credits for blocks that may be left undeveloped due to their unsuitability for agriculture or timber harvesting. A price on all emissions would be a step towards addressing this concern since companies would have to pay for the emissions associated with all of their activities, but will be strongly opposed by industry. Still as Clarke noted, such a model could be one of the most cost-effective means to curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. Related Biofuels can reduce emissions, but not when grown in place of rainforests July 22, 2008 Biofuels meant to help alleviate greenhouse gas emissions may be in fact contributing to climate change when grown on converted tropical forest lands, warns a comprehensive study published earlier this month in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Reduced impact logging can save 160 m tons of carbon emissions per year August 6, 2008 Improving inefficient logging practices could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from forest degradation, argues a new study published in the open-access journal PLoS.
Tags: redd avoided deforestation carbon finance agriculture deforestation logging forestry rainforests forests rainforest agriculture carbon conservation carbon emissions environment green Environmental news index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Advertisements:
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