Replacing coal with wood: sustainable, eco-neutral, conservation harvest of natural tree-fall in old-growth forests

摘要

layers causing, in the language of Article 3.3 of the UNFCCC “threats of serious or irreversible damage”. ‘Serious’ is a value judgment and therefore a politician’s call. ‘Irreversible’ is a scientific issue, and such threats include the inundation of heavily populated seabords from Miami to the Mekong due to collapse of landbased ice masses, and the runaway release of methane stored in subarctic tundras. In this Comment I first show that, on a reasonable metric, relying on emissions reductions alone cannot prevent these irreversible threats from rapidly increasing. Next I outline how the metric can be contained through biosphere carbon stock management (BCSM (Read 2007/2008)) that deploys negative emissions systems which offer many ways to help reduce CO2 levels quickly. Two such carbon stock management technologies are advanced by Ornstein and colleagues in this issue (Ornstein 2009; Ornstein et al. 2009). By sidelining such technologies, the strategy being pursued by the international community is both needlessly costly and geopolitically fraught (as well as being ineffective, as just noted). Thus what is needed in the post 2012 regime is a way to include incentives for such additional mitigating activities (that in many cases also support adaptation) in a way that preserves and strengthens what is effective in the cap and trade strategy. Finally I propose a Copenhagen Initiative to address this need.