Pax Natura: Blog

I recently returned from Costa Rica on a mission to work towards achieving CCB certification for the Pax Natura Project. The science involved in calculating how much carbon is sequestered in a tropical rainforest is amazing. Quite alluring actually.

There is nothing like it. Walking around with oodles of foresters who are measuring the circumference of tree trunks, inventorying the range of tree species and analyzing what is compacted to make the floor of the forest.

It's not guesswork, I can tell you that.

More later on the adventures of capturing carbon in the rain forests of Costa Rica.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), now enshrined as the Kyoto Protocol, is an attempt by the world’s governments to roll back greenhouse gas emissions by member nations to 1990 levels as a first start.

The rule book for the Kyoto Protocol set detailed rules for its implementation. Under the Land-use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) provision, a “cap and trade system” was adopted similar to (and inspired by) the immensely successful US Pollution Credit Trading Scheme. Under this system, ratifying countries set a “cap” on emissions then provide for industry to buy or sell surplus credits under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) protocols. This system allowed countries or entities actively reforesting land (or even just allowing cleared or damaged land to reforest itself) to sell “carbon emission trading credits” for the carbon thus removed from the atmosphere. In other words, the Kyoto Protocol specifically excluded standing forests from carbon credit trading thus in effect punishing those nations who have worked to protect tropical forests from deforestation.