January 30, 2001
The collapse of the Climate Treaty negotiations and forests
Last November, more than 170 countries met in the Hague, the
Netherlands, about global warming-induced climate change. (Our
executive director, Dan Ihara, attended as a non-governmental
observer.) Yet the U.S. wouldn't commit to real reduction in
emissions of carbon from fossil fuel; it wanted credit for business as usual forest practices, questionable storage of carbon in soils, and loopholes such as buying up emission credits from other countries (for example, Russia).
Unfortunately, Europe's understandable rejection of such proposals prevented recognition of the massive amounts of carbon gained through sustainable forest practices and stored in old-growth forests and in naturally regenerated native forests.
We need both reduced U.S. fossil fuel emissions (through reduced
energy consumption, improved energy efficiency, and shifts to
environmentally safe and clean renewable energy) and the protection of ancient forests, regeneration of native forests, and adoption of sustainable forestry practices. Such proposals are necessary before international negotiations resume this May in Bonn, Germany.
CEED is helping to organize panels on global warming and
environmentally sustainable energy policy for the March Environmental Land Air Water conference at the University of Oregon (www.pielc@uoregon.edu).
Finally, CEED is conducting national outreach on its "7 by 7"
campaign, helped by Greenpeace. This campaign promotes reduction of campuses' carbon emissions before 2007 to 7 percent below 1990 levels.
Next time: our Financing Sustainable Development Campaign.
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TOC for Forest & River News, Winter 2001