Zero Emission Network

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Overview

Globally forestry and land use change (clearing of forests, woodlands etc) account for about 20% of Global greenhouse gas emissions. In Australia it accounts for 6% of total emissions and was the largest contributer to Tasmanian emissions in 2005.

However even these figures are an underestimate as transport emissions associated with forestry are not calculated into this figure, and native forest logging is calculated as zero emissions. If they were it would be much higher.

Globally much of the remaining forest outside of reserves and national parks and some inside, are destined to be cleared and their carbon released into the atmosphere.

In Australia we also continue to destroy our natural forests in Tasmania, Victoria, SE NSW and Western Australia, largely to produce lost cost wood products such as wood chips for export to Japan to make paper or used here by Australian Paper to make REFLEX.

Forests as Carbon Sinks

Forest are one of the world's vital carbon sinks. It is estimated that 2,016GT of carbon are stored in the Earths forests and vegetation(1).

Logging forests releases large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

A study by Dean, C., Roxburgh, S., Mackey, B. G., (2003) shows that natural forests still retain large amounts of carbon when compared with managed commercial forests or converted to plantations.

(1) Ingerson, Ann L. 2007. U.S. Forest Carbon and Climate Change. Washington, D.C.:The Wilderness Society.

Forestry and a Carbon tax

If we are to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions all sources of carbon emissions must be included in whatever mechanisms we design to manage this reduction.

Carbon taxes and trading are one such mechanism currently being proposed and currently implemented in some parts of the world.

A carbon price of just $10 a ton would make much of our logging industry economically unviable.

For example according to Dean, C., Roxburgh, S., Mackey, B. G., (2003). Growth modelling of Eucalyptus regnans for carbon accounting at the landscape scale, a E.regans forest looses an average of 400 tons of carbon per ha on the first clear fell event. This would mean a additional cost of $4000 per ha and would make the already subsidised native forest logging industry totally economically unviable.

$10 a ton for carbon is a very low price and we are more likely to see $50 a ton initially with the carbon price rising to hundreds of dollars a ton if we are to meet strong greenhouse gas targets using carbon pricing.

Even drier forests that have been managed for wood products have been estimated to have a carbon sequestration potential of 172 ± 31 tC ha-1 according to Roxburgh, S. H., (2003) Assessing the carbon sequestration potential of managed forests: a case study from temperate Australia. This means that the process of managing drier forests commercially has led to the loss of an average 172 tC per ha or if calculated in terms of dollar value a carbon price of $8600 per ha when carbon costed at $50 a ton.

Forest as Offsets

Carbon offsets should only be used as a last resort when trying to reduce your emissions to "Zero", and there are a number of questions that relate to the merit of offsets and these are discussed in the Facts and Figures section on offsets, however they are a popular way of dealing with our current emissions and forests have a role to play in the offset game.

There are two types of offsets: 1) sequestering offsets and 2) preventative offsets, and forests can do both.

Sequestering offsets take carbon from the atmosphere. In this case new forest can be grown or damaged forest repaired with carbon being sequestered from the atmosphere as the bio mass of the forest grows.

Preventative offsets prevent carbon that was destined to be released into the atmosphere from being released. Paying for natural forests scheduled to be logged instead being placed permanently in reserves fall into this category.

See the Facts and Figures section on offsets for a more detailed discussion of these issues.

Forest and atmospheric carbon

Each year forests absorb ??GT of Carbon from the atmosphere. However, global warming is stressing the forest systems and reducing their ability to absorb carbon.

Some major forest systems such as the Amazon are predicted to collapse around 2080. The collapse of the Amazon would increase atmospheric GHG concentrations by ???ppm CO2 giving rise to a further ?? degrees temperature rise.

In Australia we are seeing the beginning of landscape level conversion of our forests with repeated massive fire events such as those in Victoria in 2003/4 and 2006/7.

Some scientists such as ?? have suggested that forest played a key role in absorbing carbon spikes in the past....

Solutions

• Immediately cease native forest logging.
• Identify areas to reestablish native forest.
• Include forestry emissions in carbon taxing trading schemes.
• Support well managed multi use farm forestry as a means to supply our long term fiber needs.
• Establish alternative fiber industries such as hemp.
• Investigate bio char options.
• Investigate options for regional bio energy production using genuine agricultural waste, this should be combined with bio char production.