Planting Trees To Fight Climate Change Problematic For New Zealand

[hatrack]

"With the Kyoto Protocol set to come into force, does the New Zealand government have a credible set of policies and measures to meet its obligations? The government has committed New Zealand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010 to what they were in 1990. Based on current trends, emissions in the year 2010 will be about 30% higher than 1990 levels. Thus, to meet the requirements of the Kyoto protocol, New Zealand must get rid of up to a third of its greenhouse gas emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol allows countries to meet their carbon emission targets by planting forests to soak up carbon instead of making emission cuts. The government expects short-term forest sinks of carbon will cover the inevitable increase in New Zealand's emissions of greenhouse gases, leaving a surplus of carbon credits to sell on the international market. This is why Climate Change Minister Pete Hodgson has said not to ratify Kyoto would be to set fire to a very large cheque.

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According to scientists at the New Zealand Forest Research Institute (FRI), New Zealand's radiata pine forests can average as much as eight or nine tonnes of carbon per hectare per year. This rate of carbon storage can only be maintained for a short period. Eventually the carbon obtained by the ageing trees by photosynthesis is exceeded by carbon lost by respiration, at which point the forest becomes a net source of carbon dioxide. Thus, to maintain a strong sink of atmospheric carbon within forests, the forests need to be replaced regularly.

The timing of replacement is important. If the average age of the trees and therefore the average carbon stored as biomass per hectare is allowed to fall, then the forest becomes a carbon source and contributes further to carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Effective forest management alone is not sufficient, as the fate of the harvested material determines whether afforestation can serve as a long-term sink for atmospheric carbon. To be successful, the method must ensure that the carbon removed stays stored in trees and does not return to the atmosphere. According to FRI scientists, at age 30, a typical harvesting age for radiata pine, there are 230 tonnes of biomass carbon per hectare stored in tree wood. Of this, only approximately half (115 tonnes) is in the form of usable wood."

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http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=10628&cid=4&cname=Business+Today

[NNadir]

1. A tree, any tree, is a device for carbon fixation, even if sequestration

is limited.

Forests become net contributors of carbon dioxide only at the point at which a significant portion of the biota begins to rot. This is merely a point at which input and output reach equilibrium, as they must in order for steady state conditions (i.e. the conditions that prevailed before the perturbration by human industrial output) to exist.

It is worth noting that the half of the forest material which is not "usuable wood" is still usuable fixed carbon. The recovery of this material will be increasingly important should the human race survive.

Chlorophyll chemically splits water and hydrogenates carbon dioxide. In the long term we will have to find a way to do the same thing, albeit possibly in a very different way. We knew flight was possible from seeing birds, and we know the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide is possible from seeing plants.