There has been a lot of praise recently for tree planting projects and while that is good news, after all the more trees planted the better, right? Well not quite because how does the uninformed general populace know that these schemes really deliver the level of cuts they are praised for?
The answer (at least in the UK) is a new Woodland Carbon Code, which has been developed this year, following a consultation period with scientists, forestry experts and project developers. According to the Forestry Commission the new Woodland Carbon Code will offer reassurance that tree-planting projects really capture carbon. To prove this the Forestry Commission will be beginning testing a new quality assurance scheme for carbon offsetting projects in the UK. A six month testing programme has just started, using 12 pilot projects that aim to refine the code ahead of its formal launch next year.
The Forestry Commission Director-General, Tim Rollinson, said that the new code would supply greater confidence to businesses buying carbon credits from tree planting projects by assuring them that they are funding quantifiable emission reductions.
“There are now many commercial schemes that encourage individuals and businesses to contribute to tree planting to help compensate for their carbon footprint,” he said. “But before investing in projects people want to know that schemes will actually deliver what they claim. The Woodland Carbon Code will provide that reassurance and will encourage more investment in tree planting in the UK.”
A problem in the past has been that some projects have over stated the level of emission reductions they deliver, a spokesman for the commission has said that this should be addressed through the new code. Projects that qualify for the code will need to comply with a scientific methodology, which measures how much carbon tree planting projects capture. Another requirement they will have to fulfill would be to demonstrate that the project could not have gone ahead without funding from offset credits as well as meeting sustainability requirements, which are designed to ensure that the trees planted remain in place.
This news coincides with new research published in the journal Science, which raised worrying questions about plants ability to continue to soak up carbon dioxide as temperatures rise. The study, conducted by Maosheng Zhao and Steven Running of the University of Montana suggest that the large scale droughts during the past decade have reduced the level of carbon dioxide absorbed and stored by plants.
This is in contrast to the scientist who had estimated that the increase in average global temperature would help to stimulate plant growth.
“Under a changing climate, severe regional droughts have become more frequent, a trend expected to continue for the foreseeable future,” wrote the researchers. “The warming-associated heat and drought not only decrease [net primary production] NPP, but also may trigger many more ecosystem disturbances, releasing carbon to the atmosphere. Reduced NPP potentially threatens global food security and future biofuel production and weakens the terrestrial carbon sink.”
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January 9th, 2011 at 4:12 PM
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