Delegates Weaken Deforestation Proposal as U.S. Balks

[swag]

Source: Bloomberg

Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Climate-change treaty negotiators weakened a draft proposal to reward developing nations for preserving forests with potentially tradable emissions credits as the U.S. and Brazil balked at such measures.

An initial plan from Papua New Guinea called for tropical rainforest countries to get credit for emission reductions made from 2008 to 2012, according to documents handed to delegates at United Nations-sponsored talks in Indonesia.

The cuts would be linked to future global climate accords, possibly giving the nations greater access to a carbon emissions trading now valued at more than $30 billion. The market doesn't yet reward countries that avoid cutting down trees. The Bush administration argues that all options should be on the table.

``If one country wants to use emissions trading as one tool for helping with the deforestation issue, that's perfectly fine with us,'' James Connaughton, President George W. Bush's top environmental adviser, said in an interview today. ``We just don't think it should be universally mandated and question whether it's necessarily the right tool for some countries.''


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=aYMBsZYsqSCg

[Robbien]

1. I don't understand why they keep weakening these regs

No matter how milquetoast they make them the US will not sign on. Why not make them exactly how the regs should be made and then at least the record will reflect the right sentiment of the entire committee except for the US.

[rodeodance]

2. nicely put

[Xithras]

3. Deforestation is the most immediate environmental threat on the planet.

More dangerous that global warming, more direct in impact to both animals and humans in the area, and occurring at a far greater rate. On top of that, the emissions from deforestation dwarf the combined emissions of every single vehicle on the planet combined.

[Barrett808]

4. I would add fisheries overexploitation and ocean biomass loss

Not easily seen, but every bit as catastrophic as deforestation.

[Xithras]

5. I'm talking about threats to the global ecosystem as a whole.

I know that fisheries overexploitation is a huge issue, but ultimately the threat there is limited to the oceanic food chain and animals dependent on it (which includes us).

Deforestation is an accelerant to global warming, reduces CO2 intake, reduces global oxygen production, speeds desertification, causes increased soil runoff that leads to both mudslides AND algal blooms & oceanic oxygen deprivation, leads to the permanent loss of topsoil, and either reduces or irreversibly alters global rainfall patterns.

Deforestation is far and away the #1 immediate environmental threat that needs to be dealt with. It's more important that CO2 emissions, more important than nuclear reactors, and more important than overfishing. The forests are the lungs of our planet, and we're killing them. Without lungs, the entire planet dies.

[poverlay]

6. You have a point, but I believe they're all very connected. The shrinking oceanic biomass

is a symptom of a much greater problem that can at least be helped by the some of the trees the horror administration is refusing to save.

[Barrett808]

7. The oceans are the other major CO2 sink...

...along with the land biosphere. We're killing the oceans just as efficiently as we're killing the forests -- maybe more efficiently, because we can't readily see the damage we're doing. Kill the oceans, and land life won't be able to survive either.

The upshot is that we must preserve biodiversity generally, both on land and at sea.