Posted on 10/04/2004 4:57:57 PM PDT by Libloather
CO2 credit trading coming to a forest near you
Kazuma Ono Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
The days in which the air we breathe is free look to be numbered.
With the Kyoto Protocol likely to take effect with the Russian government's decision Thursday to submit a bill for ratification of the Kyoto treaty, the creation of a market in which greenhouse gas emission credits are traded has become a real possibility.
Should the 1997 climate pact take effect, Japan will have to slash its emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)--the main cause of global warming--to the levels specified under the protocol.
To meet the requirements, the Environment Ministry is considering establishing a market to trade CO2 emissions at home. If such a market is set up, businesses will have to pay for CO2 emissions in the same way they trade materials and fuels.
On the other hand, some businesses, including owners of forests and woodlands, increasingly have a keen interest in the business potential of their properties as absorbers of CO2.
"How was the trading? Did you sell it?" Kenya Harami, a 52-year-old forest owner, asked his son Hiroki after coming down from the mountain for lunch. Harami manages a 480-hectare forest in Nakatsumura, Wakayama Prefecture, known for producing cypress and cedar trees.
His 23-year-old son was trying to sell CO2 quotes at an experimental online auction. Harami put on sale quotas for 4,000 tons of CO2 emissions equivalent to the volume of CO2 absorbed by his forests in two years.
As the forest includes a number of young trees that are highly photosynthetic, CO2 absorption there is estimated at about four tons per hectare a year.
Harami set the price of the gas emission credit at 5,000 yen per ton, but buyers made bids below 2,000 yen, and a deal was not made.
At the moment, such transactions on the Internet are still "virtual trading."
Eyeing the establishment of a CO2 emissions market in the near future, more and more credit trading has been tried experimentally by the government and the private sector in the past few years.
Such experiments usually include the participation of companies as well as forest owners. During online trading, Harami earned nearly 40 million yen in sales of CO2 emission credits--about 10,000 tons for a hypothetical five-year period beginning in 2006.
"Since I might make deals with big companies in the future, I have to build up experience now," Harami said.
Emissions trading involves a system in which excess quotas for CO2 emissions are traded among companies. Greenhouse gas emission credits from developing countries also will be traded by market players, such as trading houses.
Although a CO2 emissions market is not yet a definite plan for Japan, European countries are scheduled to start trading in January.
According to a World Bank estimate, 78 million tons of CO2 emissions were traded in 2003, and the emissions volume is likely to reach 150 million tons this year. Prices reportedly vary from 3 dollars to 6 dollars per ton.
"Deals for projects expected to make big profits have been already completed," said Ryuzo Yamamoto, director of Sumitomo Corp.'s global environment division, referring to intensified competition in the greenhouse gas emissions business.
The trading company has acquired a license to sell 5 million tons of CO2 emission credits each year from 2006 after launching an emission-reduction project at a factory producing freon gas in India.
But Yamamoto speculated that profits were likely to be less than initially expected. The company was on the verge of an agreement with the Indian factory, but European firms jumped in and the deal was put off as the market became fiercely competitive.
Sumitomo then looked for alternative locations worldwide, but was forced to face off against European companies all over the world, Yamamoto said.
Meanwhile, Hiroki, who went into the forestry industry after graduating from university this spring, is fascinated by the business possibilities.
"If we can make a profit in emissions trading, we could invest more money in the forests," Hiroki said. "It would be like putting the cart before the horse if we neglected our husbandry. But it would be rewarding if our returns from the forests were related to the care we took of them."
Before introducing the trading system, Japan faces many tasks, including specific measures to accurately estimate the volume of CO2 absorption.
But Russia's decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is likely to allow the long-delayed pact to come into force, opening the way for domestic CO2 credit trading in the near future.
From a biograghy @ http://www.bop2004.org/bop2004/candidate.aspx?cid=4
Kerry was a delegate to the Earth Summit in 1992 (where he met his future wife, Teresa Heinz, the widow of Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz), the Kyoto climate talks in 1997 and the Hague Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2000.
Kerry has continuously criticized the Bush administration for its abandonment of the Kyoto protocol and encouraged the United States to promote what he views as sound and sustainable environmental policies. In an August 2002 Time article Kerry asserted, "American's deserve better choices than this Administration is offering. The United States must stop being an environmental isolationist and once again work with our global allies…First and foremost, we must lead at home, where American's unrivaled ability to drive economic growth through innovation can protect the environment and create jobs."
CO2 is plant food too, so the more of it there is, the faster crops and trees grow, hence the CO2 then goes down
The earth is self-leveling
Its a farce to call CO2 a greenhouse gas. Its plant food
Bingo!
Interesting. My backyard absorbs about five tons of CO2 a year.
A mature forest will have a net CO2 uptake of zero. This was demonstrated by the pioneer of ecology, Dr. Gene Odum in the 1960's.
Immature ecosystems tend to have a high production to respiration (P/R) ratio. This means they take up large amounts of CO2, and take up lesser volumes of O2. They usually use the excess CO2 uptake to create biomass.
Mature ecosystems have P/R ratios that approach one. They respire approximately as much as they produce. Hence, the increased biomass of a mature ecosystem is minimal.
So Kyoto should not be awarding owners of forests. Landowners who clearcut, preserve the lumber, and allow ecological succession to start from a cleared field and develop into a forest again are capturing CO2 as biomass.
Well a lot of socialists are just useless breeders/feeders and a total waste of oxygen. Excuse me, I just had to get that out. Volunteered 7 hours today for BUSH/CHENEY! Went to local Repub hdqr in Lake Jackson TX, then to Pearland, then Hunstville way north of Houston, then back to Pearland, then Alvin, then Angleton, then back to Lake Jackson... picking up checks, then signs, then delivering signs, and BUSH bumper stickers, too.
What have YOU done for your presidential candidate today?
You are NEEDED! Please volunteer locally if you have any time to spare between now and Nov. 2. THANKS!
BTTT!!!!!
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