2009.08.30-Boston Globe-OpEd Forest conservation will allow some breathing room Press

This opinion piece authored by ENE's Emily Bateson appeared in the Boston Globe.

Also available at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/08/31/forest_conservation_will_allow_some_breathing_room/

Opinion: Forest conservation will allow some breathing room

By Emily Bateson
August 31, 2009

IF A TREE breathes in the forest, and no one is there, does anybody hear it? Trees do breathe: they breathe in the carbon dioxide that causes climate change and are one of our best - and cheapest - defenses against global warming. Forests play a key role in the carbon cycle. Through photosynthesis, trees convert atmospheric carbon dioxide to oxygen and also store carbon in their leaves, trunks, roots, branches, and surrounding soils.

US forests today soak up an impressive 13 percent of our annual carbon emissions, and Eastern forests are an important part of that equation. When our Eastern forests leaf out in the spring, atmospheric scientists in Hawaii can measure the carbon decreasing in the atmosphere. Tailpipes and smokestacks are “sources’’ of global warming pollution; forests are vast carbon “sinks.’’ In “Global Warming: the Movie,’’ trees would be the good guys.

The US Forest Service projects that forest carbon sequestration could almost double through additional forest conservation and improved management practices, such as longer harvest rotations that retain older trees in the forest. However, at current trends, US forest carbon storage will decrease as development gobbles up forests at an increasing rate. We must protect our valuable forest carbon resources as part of the national climate strategy. There are two mechanisms for doing so in the climate change bill passed by the House that should be improved as legislation moves to the Senate.

The first mechanism is forest offsets. Offsets are opportunities for industries regulated under the House bill to meet required emissions reductions in part through approved alternatives, such as conserving forest lands. Polluters can purchase some offsets instead of reducing their own smokestack emissions - as long as the reductions are equivalent. Offsets provide flexibility and cost-effective choices for reducing emissions. And they offer forest land owners a welcome new revenue stream and an opportunity to join the low carbon economy by managing their forests for increased carbon storage.

But the House bill allows for a wide range of offsets, not just for forests and farmland, and if these don’t meet rigorous requirements, the real emissions reductions we need will not occur. Unfortunately, an 11th hour compromise seriously diluted agricultural and forest offsets standards and removed them from oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency. At best, forestland and farmland owners will simply miss out on the new offsets market. At worst, polluters will purchase offsets that do not reliably reduce emissions, and US greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise. The Senate must restore the rigorous offsets provisions for agricultural and forest offsets.

The second mechanism for forest carbon conservation is through a supplemental funding program. The House bill provides 5 percent of revenues gained by auctioning allowances for carbon emissions (about $5 billion per year) forinternational forest protection. There is nothing comparable for domestic forests. Yet millions of small US forest land and farm land owners who cannot meet the standards of the offsets program could help reduce global warming by protecting their lands through permanent conservation easements or managing them for carbon retention on 20-year contracts - if there were a program that paid them for doing so.

Fortunately, the New England congressional delegation understands the climate value of forests.

Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine proposed a supplemental forest carbon program for the House bill, co-sponsored by Representatives Paul Hodes of New Hampshire and Michael Michaud of Maine. New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen has introduced a similar bill in the Senate, co-sponsored by Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Although this bill should be strengthened, it is an important start toward a coherent US forest carbon strategy that will help millions of people manage their forests for carbon while also conserving other forest benefits, including clean water, wildlife and biodiversity protection, climate adaptation, recreation, and green jobs.

Our trees are breathing - and our congressional delegation is listening. Now the Senate needs to recognize the value of forests in combating global warming and pass a bill with rigorous offsets standards and a robust supplemental US forest conservation program.

Emily M. Bateson is the deputy director of Environment Northeast and directs its Forests and Land Use Program.