Climate news

The forest connection
The Kyoto Protocol
Impacts on forests
Carbon sinks
What scientists say
Problems with plantations
Strategic solutions
Factfile
Publications

Home

• The carbon sink concept is lacking "widely accepted definitions, methods and data for counting sinks. Even if nations could agree on the necessary procedures [for counting carbon storage in sinks], there would still be enormous potential for cooking the books - only a monitoring system larger and more intrusive than anything ever attempted under international law could settle the inevitable disputes. Moreover, the carbon content of forests and soils varies naturally -decades of monitoring would be needed to be certain that a 'sink' was not merely transient and deserved full credit. Yet the commitment periods under international law are typically much shorter, such as the five-year 'budget period' of the Kyoto Protocol."
David Victor (2001). The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global Warming. pp. 8-9.

• Forestry is an "insecure way of storing carbon out of harm's way."
Will Steffen, Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, chair of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme

• "We cannot compare the effectiveness of fossil fuel with land-use change and forestry activities with respect to reduced emissions."
Nilsson et al (2000). Full Carbon Account for Russia. IIASA Interim Report IR-00-021. Laxenburg, Austria. 22 August 2000, p. 115.

• "An area covered with a plantation managed for maximum volume yield will normally contain substantially less carbon than the same area of unmanaged forest"
Cannel (1999). Environmental impacts of forest monocultures: water use, acidification, wildlife conservation, and carbon storage. New Forests, 17: 239-262.

• "The current state of knowledge regarding carbon sources and sinks cannot determine the levels and flows of carbon with sufficient accuracy to form the basis for the Protocol and any viable trading scheme."
Nilsson, Sten (2000). Editorial. Options. Autumn 2000. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Laxenburg, Austria.

• "Uncertainty in estimates of the carbon balance in Canada's forests could be greater than 1000% if even seemingly small factors such as increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere are not taken into account. That is, estimates of carbon sequestration can be affected by a factor of 10 just by new discoveries. Climate change (temperature alone) and changes in CO2 concentrations themselves made a difference in estimations of Net Primary Production during 1980-96 of 3% and 2% annually, while taking account of the secondary climate change effect of increase in growing season length changes estimates of C sink over that period by 38%. Even with proposed methods uncertainty would still be up to 50%, even not counting certain uncertainties such as effects of thaw depth on soil respiration, etc."
Wenjun Chen et al (2000). Approaches for Reducing Uncertainties in Regional Forest Carbon Balance. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 14. p. 833.

• The requirement that countries "precisely calculate net changes in GHG emissions and removals based on changes in carbon stocks" is an "unrealistic expectation" in the countries examined.
Jonas B et al (1998). Land Use Change and Forestry in Austria: A Scientific Assessment of Austria's Carbon Balance in Light of Article 3 of the Kyoto Protocol. IIASA Interim Report IR-98-028. Laxenburg, Austria. p.1.