U.S. says forests will help carbon emission cuts

August 3, 2000
Web posted at: 12:09 PM EDT (1609 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The United States has proposed getting as much credit for using forests and farmland to absorb carbon dioxide as it would for cutting emissions from smokestack industries under the Kyoto accord on global warming, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The United States filed proposals late on Tuesday with the U.N.'s environmental office in Bonn, arguing that carbon-absorbing forests and farmland -- so-called carbon sinks -- should give the United States substantial credits under the 1997 Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions and other gases thought to be warming the planet.

"We think carbon sinks have an important role to play. If you remove a ton of carbon from the atmosphere through carbon sinks then that is the same as avoiding a ton of emissions through fossil fuels," the senior U.S. official told Reuters.

The Kyoto pact, drawn up to avoid dangerous global warming, was signed by the United States and 100 other countries but has not been ratified by the U.S. Congress due to opposition over how much it would cost U.S. industry to meet the Kyoto targets.

By counting how much carbon is absorbed through forests and farmland, the pressure would be greatly reduced on U.S. companies to cut emissions and other gases, one official said.

The Secretariat for the U.N. Convention on Climate Change in Bonn is overseeing the talks aimed at carrying out the Kyoto Protocol. The State Department said 38 other countries were also due to file proposals on Tuesday that will be discussed at negotiations in the Hague in September and November.

Under the Kyoto pact, industrial nations must find ways to cut heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels that are believed to cause global warming by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels in the period 2008 to 2012.

The United States committed to reduce such emissions by 7 percent, amounting to a reduction to 1.5 billion tons.

Due to stronger than expected U.S. economic growth and increased fuel usage, the official estimated U.S. emissions would probably amount to more than 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon by 2008 -- 600 million tons above the Kyoto target.

"The target reduction in terms of what is actually happening is really about a 30 percent reduction and not 7 percent," the U.S. official said.

He estimated the United States could be credited with a reduction of about 300 million tons of carbon from carbon sinks -- about half of the overall reduction under the Kyoto accord.

"Whether we get to count all of that would be subject to discussions," he said.

The U.S. proposals said carbon sinks could play an important role in meeting the challenge of climate change and countries should be credited for this and not only reductions from cutbacks in emissions from fossil fuels.

"The United States believes a comprehensive approach would best account for the full range of natural and human activities that could affect the global climate system," said the document delivered to the U.N. office.

Scientists have argued that not enough is known about carbon sinks to accurately measure changes when actions are taken to increase them.

However, U.S. officials said there was now "strong science" supporting measurement techniques.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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