C L I M A T E C H A N G E
To many, a tree is shelter, beauty, a source of food or even a source of income. To international climate change experts, a tree is a sink. Trees breathe just like humans, except in reverse — they take in carbon dioxide and expel oxygen. This function of the tree is now being intensively studied to determine whether trees can play a key role in absorbing the carbon dioxide that human activities are producing.
The research has been inconclusive so far, but the role of forests as carbon sinks was much discussed at the Buenos Aires climate talks. The Kyoto Protocol's Article 12 has been interpreted by some to mean that planting forests to offset carbon emissions — carbon forestry projects — will count toward emission credits. As a result, many countries, including those in CEE, are hoping to plant trees rather than cut more of their emissions.
A full scientific report on sinks and whether they qualify as a genuine climate change mitigation measure will be released by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the year 2000. The sink concept enjoys considerable popularity because it is comparatively cheap and politically easy to sell.
Central and Eastern Europe contains some of the last wild forests left in Europe, and many of the joint implementation projects already underway in this region involve tree-planting. The full adoption of carbon sinks as a flexibility mechanism could present an easy opportunity for the 11 CEE signatories to meet some of their Kyoto obligations.
However, the carbon sink method could turn out to be a double-edged sword. Trees also release carbon — when they catch fire. In a world of rapidly increasing temperatures and unpredictable weather, many of the proposed carbon sinks could actually worsen the situation. The 1997 Indonesian forest fires produced more emissions in one year than did all the European Union countries together.
