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Carbon Emission Control. Good or Bad?

Administrator — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 04:38:39 +0000

Carbon Emission Reduction Strategies May Undermine Tropical Biodiversity Conservation, Conservationists Warn.
It seems astonishing that attempts to reduce carbon emissions could have an adverse effect on anything but new research is showing that it is possible!
Their warning comes only days ahead of the Cancun COP 16 climate change talks (Nov. 29 to Dec. 10, 2010).
REDD is a United Nations designed mechanism for carbon emission trading that provides financial compensation to developing countries for improved management and protection of their forest resources. If it works, REDD could strengthen the global fight against climate change, and create an opportunity for carbon-rich tropical countries to protect threatened biodiversity as a co-benefit of maintaining forests and the carbon they store.
Writing in the journal Carbon Balance and Management, a network of conservation scientists, use data for Indonesia, a species-rich tropical country and the world’s third largest source of carbon emissions, to highlight ways in which emission reduction strategies could turn sour for wildlife.
The researchers explained that, ‘Biodiversity and forest carbon are correlated at a global scale but this is not the case at sub-national levels in Indonesia. This creates a trade-off between the emission reduction potential and biodiversity value of different ecosystems. In short, the highest carbon savings are not necessarily located in places with the highest levels of species diversity.’
The authors, from Southeast Asia, Europe and the USA, compiled studies of wildlife, plants, land-cover and carbon emissions to show that carbon-dense peat swamp forests, focal ecosystems for REDD in Indonesia, do not coincide with areas supporting the highest concentrations of threatened biodiversity. Peat swamp forests attract the bulk of REDD funds— holding around 8 times more carbon than other lowland forests, and provide habitat for high profile species such as orang-utan, tigers and Asian elephants. However, when we look at overall numbers of plants, mammals and birds, especially species of greatest conservation concern, we find that peat forests typically support lower densities and fewer species than other lowland forest types.
The paper points out that preferential targeting of peatland under REDD could intensify pressures to establish oil palm and paper/pulp plantations in forests that are more important for biodiversity conservation. This problem is not unique to Indonesia, but is a concern throughout the tropics.
The authors argue that a regulatory framework is urgently needed to guide implementation of REDD, and recommend three ways to ensure that effective carbon emissions reduction strategies also deliver substantial long-term biodiversity co-benefits in tropical countries—home to 51 % of the world’s 48,170 threatened species. They urge developing countries to prepare their own explicit national targets for ecosystem and species protection across all native ecosystem types. Using these targets, priority ecosystems and threatened species under-represented in the protected area network should be identified. Co-financing from REDD can then be mobilised to redefine acceptable land-use practices within priority areas needed to fill biodiversity conservation gaps. In this way, REDD will offset opportunity costs of foregone development, and ensure that carbon emission reductions deliver biodiversity gains where they are most needed.

Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by the University of Kent in the UK.

Reference:
Gary D. Paoli, Philip L. Wells, Erik Meijaard, Mathew J. Struebig, Andrew J.
Marshall, Krystof Obidzinski, Aseng Tan, Andjar Rafiastanto, Betsy Yaap, J.W.
Ferry Slik, Alexandra Morel, Balu Perumal, Niels Wielaard, Simon Husson, Laura
D’Arcy. Biodiversity Conservation in the REDD. Carbon Balance and Management,
2010; 5 (1): 7 DOI: 10.1186/1750-0680-5-7

Is Population Change an Influence on Climate Change

Administrator — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 21:27:47 +0000

Changes in population, including aging and urbanization, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years, according to a new study.

The study, funded by a European Young Investigator’s Award, the Hewlett Foundation, and the US National Science Foundation was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and was conducted by researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The study conclusions were that by the middle of the century it is estimated that the global population could rise by more than three billion people, with most of that increase occurring in urban areas. The study showed that a slowing of that population growth could contribute to significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By 2050, the researchers found that if population followed one of the slower growth paths foreseen as plausible by demographers at the United Nations, it could provide 16 to 29 percent of the emission reductions thought necessary to keep global temperatures from causing serious impacts. The effect of slower population growth on greenhouse gas emissions would be even larger by the end of the century. The team believe that if global population growth slows down, it is not going to solve the climate problem, but it can make a contribution, especially in the long term. They further show that slower population growth will have different influences, depending on where it occurs. For example, a slowing of population growth in developing countries today will have a large impact on future global population size. However, slower population growth in developed countries will matter to emissions too because of higher per capita energy use.

Scientists have long known that changes in population will have some effect on greenhouse gas emissions, but there has been debate on how large that effect might be.

Urbanization and aging

The researchers sought to quantify how demographic changes influence emissions over time, and in which regions of the world. They also went beyond changes in population size to examine the links between aging, urbanization, and emissions. The team found that growth in urban populations could lead to as much as a 25 percent rise in projected carbon dioxide emissions in some developing countries. The increased economic growth associated with city dwellers was directly correlated with increased emissions, largely due to the higher productivity and consumption preferences of an urban labour force. In contrast, aging can reduce emission levels by up to 20 percent in some industrialized countries. This is because older populations are associated with lower labour force participation, and the resulting lower productivity leads to lower economic growth.

They say that demography will matter to greenhouse gas emissions over the next 40 years and that urbanization will be particularly important in many developing countries, especially China and India, and aging will be important in industrialized countries.”

The researchers worked with projections showing that population aging will occur in all regions of the world, a result of people living longer and declines in fertility.
Future scenarios of human behaviour

The authors developed a set of economic growth, energy use, and emissions scenarios, using a new computer model (the Population-Environment-Technology model, or PET). To capture the effects of future demographic change they distinguished between household types, looking at age, size, and urban vs. rural location.

In addition, they drew on data from national surveys covering 34 countries and representative of 61 percent of the global population to estimate key economic characteristics of household types over time, including labour supply and demand for consumer goods.
Households can affect emissions either directly, through their consumption patterns, or indirectly, through their effects on economic growth..

The authors also suggest that developers of future emissions scenarios give greater consideration to the implications of urbanization and aging, particularly in the U.S., European Union, China, and India. The researchers caution that their findings do not imply that policies affecting aging or urbanization should be implemented as a response to climate change, but rather that better understanding of these trends would help anticipate future changes.

The article is written from materials provided by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

Reference:
Brian C. O’Neill, Michael Dalton, Regina Fuchs, Leiwen Jiang, Shonali
Pachauri, and Katarina Zigova. Global demographic trends and future carbon
emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 11, 2010

What you eat is what you get

Administrator — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 06:04:55 +0000

Can our choice of food affect climate change?
We are always being told that ‘we are what we eat’ and of course by and large that’s true but we are now being told that ‘what we eat is what we are going to get in the form of climate change!

Researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have discovered that conscious choice of food can substantially mitigate climate change and that by reducing the consumption of meat and dairy products and improving agricultural practices we could decrease global greenhouse gas emissions substantially. By 2055 the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture could be cut by more than eighty percent which is a significant decrease. The results of the modelling study have recently been published in the journal Global Environmental Change and the scientists say that meat and milk really matter.

Reduced consumption of these commodities could decrease the future emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from agriculture to levels below those of 1995. In the past, agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly methane and nitrous oxide, have increased steadily. In 2005 they accounted for 14 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Besides the conscious choice of food on the consumers’ side there are technical mitigation options on the producers’ side to reduce emissions significantly.
The researchers used a global land use model to assess the impact of future changes in food consumption and diet shifts, but also of technological mitigation options on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions up to 2055. The global model combines information on population, income, food demand, and production costs with spatially explicit environmental data on potential crop yields.
The calculations show that global agricultural non-carbon dioxide (non-CO2) emissions increase significantly until 2055 if food energy consumption and diet preferences remain constant at the level of 1995. Taking into account changing dietary preferences towards higher value foods, like meat and milk, associated with higher income, emissions will rise even more. In contrast, reducing the demand for livestock products by 25 percent each decade from 2015 to 2055, leads to lower non-CO2 emissions even compared to 1995.
There are also technological mitigation options to decrease emissions significantly but these technological mitigation options are not as effective as changes in food consumption.
The highest reduction potential could be achieved by a combination of both approaches, the researchers report. Compared to a scenario that takes population growth and an increase in the demand for livestock products into account, emissions of methane and nitrous oxide could be cut by 84 percent in 2055.
However, livestock products are very valuable for nutrition as they contributed globally an average of one third of protein to dietary intakes in 2003. For many poor and undernourished people in the developing world who frequently suffer from protein deficiencies livestock products are important parts of food consumption. In contrast, less meat-oriented diets in the developed regions would have positive health effects, the authors note. Agricultural, non-carbon dioxide non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions consist mainly of methane and nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is about 300 and methane about 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Agricultural emissions originate from the use of synthetic fertilizers on croplands and from flooded rice fields. Because animal products require large amounts of fodder crops, livestock production is connected to higher emissions from fertilizer application. Additional livestock emissions occur due to manure excretion, management and application and methane producing microbes in ruminants’ digestive systems.

This article is adapted from a report provided by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
Reference:
Alexander Popp, Hermann Lotze-Campen, Benjamin Bodirsky. Food consumption, diet shifts and associated non-CO2 greenhouse gases from agricultural production. Global Environmental Change, 2010; 20 (3): 451 DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.02.001
APA
MLA Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) (2010, June 29). Conscious choice of food can substantially mitigate climate change, research finds.

European Diversity Loss

Administrator — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:32:59 +0000

European biodiversity loss ‘as serious’ as climate change, European environment commissioner warns. Most of Europe’s species and habitats are in poor condition and the risk of extinction continues to rise, environment chiefs warned at a major biodiversity conference in Athens recently. But is it too late?
The natural world across Europe is suffering a crisis as serious as the threat of climate change, Europe’s environment chiefs are to warn this week. A report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) sounded the alarm that most species and habitats across the continent are in poor condition and the risk of extinction continues to rise. New figures for the UK also show that even the most important and rare plants and animals are suffering: eight out of 10 habitats and half of species given the highest level of European protection are in an “unfavourable” condition. Species at risk in the UK range from insects like the honeybee and swallowtail butterfly, to mammals and birds at the top of the food chain such as the otter and the golden eagle, said the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH).
At another recent high-level conference in London organised by the CEH, leaders from business, government, academics and NGOs were warned that ecosystems underpin human lifestyles from air, water and food to resources for industry. Professor Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientific adviser and president of the Royal Society, said: “Our massive and unintended experiment on the planet’s reaction to unsustainable levels of human impacts is approaching crisis point. The future is not yet beyond rescue, provided we take appropriate action with due urgency.”