--the following appeared as a guest commentary in Carbon Market Europe, Thomson Reuters Point Carbon on February 25, 2011--
Closing the deal on forest accounting
By Chris Henschel, national manager of boreal conservation, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Mark it on your calendar: the UN climate change conference in South Africa this December will deliver an agreement on the accountability of industrialised countries for their emissions from forest management and other land uses (LULUCF).
AB32 - Charged with implementing the provisions of A.B. 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, the California Air Resource Board (ARB) last Dec.16 held a marathon day of public testimony in Sacramento before adopting the cap-and-trade program they declared would set “the gold standard” for such programs nation-wide.
The CDM’s forest carbon rules surrounding eligibility of both land and activity type need to be reformed if the forest sector is going to make its contribution to the climate change mitigation effort, argues Dr Promode Kant of India’s Institute of Green Economy:
The long-debated issue of what part forestry should be play if any in the European Union’s climate change effort is again at the fore. The European Commission last week opened a consultation on whether land-based activity, the LULUCF sector in Kyoto Protocol jargon, should be included in the EU’s 2020 emissions reduction effort.
BRUSSELS, Sep 16, 2010 (IPS) - Extra permits to pollute the atmosphere would be given to corporations that invest in areas surrounding tropical rainforests under plans drawn up by one of Europe's most influential pressure groups.
New rumbling emerged from Europe this week that the potential for emissions-reducing activities involving land use, land-use change, and forestry may be finally getting a day in the European sun. The European Commission opened up a public consultation to reevaluate the way Europe has gone about accounting for its land use emissions, particularly involving forest management. We're still not at the stage of debating whether the EU Emissions Trading Schem
GERÊS, Portugal, Aug 31, 2010 (IPS) - Environmentalists are alarmed: fires have destroyed close to 100,000 hectares of forest in Portugal this summer, releasing one million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Worst of all, the forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon.
