Peter C. Frumhoff

Biodiversity and REDD at Copenhagen

Reducing carbon emissions through slowing deforestation can benefit biodiversity best if countries implement sensible policies.

Designing a carbon market that protects forests in developing countries

Firmly incorporated into the Kyoto Protocol, market mechanisms offer an innovative and cost–effective means of controlling atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. However, as with markets for many other goods and services, a carbon market may generate negative environmental externalities. Possible interpretations and application of Kyoto provisions under COP–6bis and COP–7 raise concerns that rules governing forestry with respect to the Kyoto carbon market may increase pressure on native forests and their biodiversity in developing countries. In this paper, we assess the following two specific concerns with Kyoto provisions for forestry measures. First, whether, under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), by restricting allowable forestry measures to afforestation and reforestation, and explicitly excluding protection of threatened native forests, the Kyoto Protocol will enhance incentives for degradation and clearing of forests in developing countries; second, whether carbon crediting for forest management in Annex I (industrialized) regions under Article 3.4 creates a dynamic that can encourage displacement of timber harvests from Annex I countries to developing nations. Given current timber extraction patterns in developing regions, additional harvest pressure would certainly entail a considerable cost in terms of biodiversity loss. In both cases, we find that the concerns about deleterious impacts to forests and biodiversity are justified, although the scale of such impacts is difficult to predict. Both to ensure reliable progress in managing carbon concentrations and to avoid unintended consequences with respect to forest biodiversity, the further development of the Kyoto carbon market must explicitly correct these perverse incentives. We recommend several steps that climate policymakers can take to ensure that conservation and restoration of biodiversity–rich natural forests in developing countries are rewarded rather than penalized. To correct incentives to clear natural forests through CDM crediting for afforestation and reforestation, we recommend for the first commitment period that policymakers establish an early base year, such as 1990, such that lands cleared after that year would be ineligible for crediting. We further recommend an exception to this rule for CDM projects that are explicitly designed to promote natural forest restoration and that pass rigorous environmental impact review. Restoration efforts are typically most effective on lands that are adjacent to standing forests and hence likely to have been recently cleared. Thus, we recommend for these projects establishing a more recent base year, such as 2000. For the second and subsequent commitment periods, we recommend that climate policymakers act to restrain inter–annex leakage and its impacts by ensuring that crediting for forest management in industrialized countries is informed by modelling efforts to anticipate the scale of leakage associated with different Annex I ‘Land use, land–use change and forestry’ policy options, and coupled with effective measures to protect natural forests in developing countries. The latter should include expanding the options permitted under the CDM to carbon crediting for projects that protect threatened forests from deforestation and forest degradation. Ultimately, carbon market incentives for forest clearing can be reduced and incentives for forest conservation most effectively strengthened by fully capturing carbon emissions associated with deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries under a future emissions cap. Finally, we note that these recommendations have broader relevance to any forest–based measures to reduce greenhouse–gas emissions developed outside of the specific context of the Kyoto Protocol.

Attributing human mortality during extreme heat waves to anthropogenic climate change

It has been argued that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. The extreme high temperatures of the summer of 2003 were associated with up to seventy thousand excess deaths across Europe. Previous studies have attributed the meteorological event to the human influence on climate, or examined the role of heat waves on human health. Here, for the first time, we explicitly quantify the role of human activity on climate and heat-related mortality in an event attribution framework, analysing both the Europe-wide temperature response in 2003, and localised responses over London and Paris. Using publicly-donated computing, we perform many thousands of climate simulations of a high-resolution regional climate model. This allows generation of a comprehensive statistical description of the 2003 event and the role of human influence within it, using the results as input to a health impact assessment model of human mortality. We find large-scale dynamical modes of atmospheric variability remain largely unchanged under anthropogenic climate change, and hence the direct thermodynamical response is mainly responsible for the increased mortality. In summer 2003, anthropogenic climate change increased the risk of heat-related mortality in Central Paris by ~70% and by ~20% in London, which experienced lower extreme heat. Out of the estimated ~315 and ~735 summer deaths attributed to the heatwave event in Greater London and Central Paris, respectively, 64 (±3) deaths were attributable to anthropogenic climate change in London, and 506 (±51) in Paris. Such an ability to robustly attribute specific damages to anthropogenic drivers of increased extreme heat can inform societal responses to, and responsibilities for, climate change.

Above the din but in the fray: environmental scientists as effective advocates

Environmental policies and actions can be improved when environmental scientists engage in science-based advocacy, by calling attention to relevant scientific information and ensuring that policies and their implementation are consistent with the best available science. There are many models for scientist-advocates within and outside of advocacy organizations, and the roles they play may vary, depending on career stage. Here, we discuss the challenges and rewards for scientific staff in science-based advocacy organizations, as well as for an academic working with an advocacy organization, as a consultant, collaborator, or member of an advisory board. We identify some best practices for science-based advocacy and encourage the environmental science community to recognize the importance of the scientist-advocates role in strengthening environmental policy.

The rise in global atmospheric CO2, surface temperature, and sea level from emissions traced to major carbon producers

Researchers have quantified the contributions of industrialized and developing nations’ historical emissions to global surface temperature rise. Recent findings that nearly two-thirds of total industrial CO2 and CH4 emissions can be traced to 90 major industrial carbon producers have drawn attention to their potential climate responsibilities. Here, we use a simple climate model to quantify the contribution of historical (1880–2010) and recent (1980–2010) emissions traced to these producers to the historical rise in global atmospheric CO2, surface temperature, and sea level. Emissions traced to these 90 carbon producers contributed ∼57% of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2, ∼42–50% of the rise in global mean surface temperature (GMST), and ∼26–32% of global sea level (GSL) rise over the historical period and ∼43% (atmospheric CO2), ∼29–35% (GMST), and ∼11–14% (GSL) since 1980 (based on best-estimate parameters and accounting for uncertainty arising from the lack of data on aerosol forcings traced to producers). Emissions traced to seven investor-owned and seven majority state-owned carbon producers were consistently among the top 20 largest individual company contributors to each global impact across both time periods. This study lays the groundwork for tracing emissions sourced from industrial carbon producers to specific climate impacts and furthers scientific and policy consideration of their historical responsibilities for climate change.

Congress's attacks on science-based rules

Proposed laws based on false premises could undermine science for the public interest There is a growing and troubling assault on using credible scientific knowledge in U.S. government regulation that will put science and democracy at risk if unchecked. We present five examples, and the false premises on which they are based, of current attempts in the U.S. Congress in the supposed pursuit of transparency and accountability but at the expense of the role of science in policy-making.

The elusive prospect of sustainable forestry

Timber Production and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Rain Forests by A.G. Johns Cambridge University Press, 1997. £40.00/

Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry

69.95 hbk (xvii+225 pages) ISBN 0 521 57282 7.