UN Study to Help CO2 Reductions in Developing Nations

Researchers representing a number of different countries have collaborated to kick-start a multi-million dollar study aimed at helping some of the poorest farming communities in the world capitalise on CO2 reduction strategies.  Entitled the ‘Carbon Benefits Project’, the study will assess a number of areas in China, Nigeria, Niger and Kenya in order to establish the level of carbon being soaked up by natural means as a result of sustainable farming practices. 

UNEP (the United Nations Environment Programme) and GEF (the Global Environment Facility) are at the forefront of the Carbon Benefits Project.

Deforestation Emissions

Of the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases created as a direct result of human activity, deforestation emissions make up around 20 per cent.   As trees develop, they take on CO2, but emit it when either in a state of rot or when burned down.  

Overall, farming-related greenhouse gas emissions equal the total produced by the entire transport industry (i.e. aircraft, lorries and cars) and will likely exceed soon it, bearing in mind population growth.

Attaching a value to keeping trees alive and storing CO2 in the earth could incentivise developing nations into reducing/stopping deforestation, and implementing alternative farming techniques that are more beneficial to the environment.  

Forest CO2

A replacement deal for the 12-year-old greenhouse-gas limiting Kyoto Protocol is due to be struck up between approximately 190 countries at the end of 2009.  This will potentially accelerate the global fight against climate change, the effects of which – according to many scientists – will ultimately include rising tides and intense droughts.   While it is anticipated that these countries will contemplate financing a u-turn on deforestation in developing nations, no solid agreement has yet been forged on how to place value on forest CO2.

"We all hope for a deal in Copenhagen, and it is having such tools [like the Carbon Benefits Project] that will actually make the deal implementable on the ground”, Maryam Niamir-Fuller, an official representing the Global Environment Facility, advised the media gathered recently at the Kenyan-based headquarters of UNEP.

“The true economic value of ... ecosystem services has not been integrated into the value of crops or livestock”, she added.  “Since that value is not there, it is not captured by the markets...then you have all kinds of distortions.”

Two hundred years after the introduction of mass industrialisation, rich countries are united in their desire to combat pollution.  However, they are at odds with developing countries over the level of financial support they should provide.  Amongst the proposals is carbon trading, but the introduction of this, according to critics, could mean that necessary anti-climate efforts on home territory get forgotten about, in favour of accelerated international support efforts.

A report published by the European Commission in 2008 urged the EU to avoid permitting industry to hit its climate targets by investing in anti-deforestation efforts prior to 2020.