Global Ecological Problems and Issues

According to most environmentalists and scientists the strengthening of the Earth's greenhouse effect is rapidly becoming the most serious single threat for the future of humanity.
Global warming is also a complex democracy and equality issue. On a long run the strengthening of the greenhouse effect is a serious threat to everybody. The problem, however, is mostly caused by the rich minority of the world's population. On a per capita basis some countries are producing a hundred times more climate warming emissions than the world's poorest countries. And inside each country the more well-off people are always producing more greenhouse gas emissions than the middle- or low-income segments of the population. The rich have large cars and they tend to use them more, they tend to travel more with jet planes that produce several times more greenhouse gases per kilometre per passenger than private cars, they have larger houses that are either heated or cooled down with fossil fuels and they buy more consumer goods the manufacturing of which is causing large greenhouse gas emissions.
If we can only produce a certain, clearly limited amount of greenhouse gases without destabilizing the climate, the only fair way to divide the rights to produce greenhouse gas emissions should be to divide them on a per capita basis. How to achieve such an arrangement, however, is far from easy. Many observers have remarked, that the political negotiations about sharing the rights to pollute greenhouse gases could become something like the New International Economic Order of the 21st century.
In the UNCED conference in 1992 the industrialized countries committed themselves to cutting their carbon dioxide emissions back to the 1990 level before the year 2000. This was a modest step, but it was hoped that it would gradually lead to more meaningful moves towards the same direction.
In the Kyoto meeting, at the end of 1997, the industrialized countries finally promised to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent from the 1990 level before the year 2012. This was a far cry from the level IPCC had deemed necessary, but in spite of such reservations the Kyoto Protocol was hailed as a historical first step towards significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The convention was somewhat watered down in Bonn, in July 2001.
According to decisions made in Bonn the industrialized countries that will ratify the Kyoto Protocol can implement most of the agreed reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon dioxide emission quotas from other countries, by financing greenhouse gas cuts in the Third World or in the former Soviet Union or by absorbing carbon dioxide into forests or the soils of farmlands.
In reality the industrialized countries - with the significant exception of the USA who produces one third of their greenhouse gas emissions - committed themselves to reducing their real greenhouse gas emissions by 1.8 per cent of the 1990 level by the year 2012.
The next steps will be more difficult. In order to achieve the necessary 60-80 per cent reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions much more needs to be done in the North, and the Southern countries must also agree to limit the growth of their emissions.
Some Southern countries have said that the Western countries, with only about 20 per cent of the world's population, are producing 60 per cent of all the greenhouse gas emissions. If the USA is producing, on a per capita basis, roughly one hundred times more carbon dioxide than Bangladesh, it can't possibly be fair to ask both countries to cut their emissions by 60 per cent, or by 80 per cent.
Many Third World countries would like to appropriate the rights to produce greenhouse gas emissions between the different nations on a per capita basis, so that a country with one hundred million people would get ten times more emission permits than a country with a population of ten million. If there is an agreement on this, most Third World countries could still continue increasing their greenhouse gas emissions for some time, or alternatively sell their unused quotas to the industrialized countries. The industrialized countries, on the other hand, would have to make very major cuts into their own emissions, or to buy some more emission rights from the Third World countries.
The OECD has estimated, that the price of the emission permits might be somewhere between USD 100 and USD 350 per one ton of carbon already when we would be talking about a cut of 20 per cent in the global emissions. According to the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment this might earn at least USD 100 billion a year in foreign currency for the Third World countries. When the world would move towards a 60 or 80 per cent cut in the emissions, the prices of the emission quotas and the worth of their international trade might multiply.
Besides emission permits, also the managing of carbon sinks - forests absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - could become a tradeable commodity. If this happens and the governments will be paid for carbon sequestration, perhaps peasants and village communities should also get their share of the income?
In the climate convention negotiations many environmentalists were against the inclusion of carbon sinks in the treaty. According to many environmental organizations the sequestration of carbon into forests can only be a temporary relief to the problem, because there is a clear limit for how much carbon the forests can absorb. When the trees start to die the carbon is again released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. On a long run the only way to halt the build-up of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is to limit the use of oil, coal and natural gas. And what if the forests that have been grown to store atmospheric carbon dioxide will burn in giant forest fires?
Other environmental organizations, however, emphasized the benefits of including carbon sinks into the convention. They pointed out that the principle would, among other things, provide a strong incentive for the governments to protect their remaining natural forest areas. Among the supporters of the idea were most of the indigenous peoples of Amazonas and the union of the rubber-tappers and nut-collectors of the Brazilian Amazonas (CNS).
In Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Equador and Peru huge tracts of rainforests have been protected from logging by agreements between the governments and the federations of indigenous peoples living in the forest areas. This has been one of the most important success stories in the history of nature protection, because roughly 30 per cent of all the living species of our planet's land ecosystems exist in the Amazonian rainforests. The most important ally of the Amazonian rainforest peoples have been the trade unions of people who earn their living by collecting natural rubber, brazil nuts or other products from the rainforests without cutting the trees. Especially the national rubber-tappers’ and nut-gatherers’ union of Brazil (CNS, Conseilho National de Seringueiros) has been very important. In Brazil between four and six million people earn at least a major part of their livelihood through such activities, while the number of rainforest Indians is very small. This has, in practise, made CNS the most important organization with a vested interest in the protection of the rainforests in Brazil.
In spite of all this CNS a lot of violent and angry criticism from the Northern environmental organizations when it supported the inclusion of carbon sinks into the climate convention.
The establishment of carbon storage forests doesn't have to be a temporary measure. It is possible to manage the forests so, that very high amounts of carbon can be stored in the tree biomass for an indefinite period of time. This can simply be done by lengthening the rotation period used in forestry. Also, there is a surprisingly large number of tree species that can live one or several thousands of years and achieve a very big size - if left in peace.
Carbon storage forests would most probably be less vulnerable to forest fires than ordinary forests. Young and small trees burn much more easily than older and larger trees which are often surprisingly resistant to forest fires because of their thick bark. Some trees - like the baobab - cannot burn in any kind of forest fires, as long as they remain alive, because of their high moisture content.
Global warming will definitely increase the number and severity of forest fires in different parts of the world, but the higher the average age of the forests will be, the less damage the fires are likely to do. The trees in the ordinary commercial forests are hardly ever grown to an age that would enable them to survive even a relatively mild forest fire.
Many Southern organizations have pointed out other dangers. If the governments and private companies start to establish huge carbon storage forests in the South, this might lead to large-scale privatisation of common lands and to large-scale displacement of a lot of people. When the government of Thailand announced that it was going to establish of 4.5 million hectares of eucalyptus plantations, the plan was violently opposed and finally brought down because it would have displaced 5-10 million rural people. For instance the US Ministry of Energy has proposed the establishment of 700 million hectares of new plantation forests in the Third World in order to halt the global warming. What would be the scale of displacement caused by such imaginative approaches?
However, there might be ways to modify the idea of carbon storage forests so, that it becomes truly useful. The most important thing is to ensure, that the arrangements related to carbon sequestration will appropriate more resources into the hands of the poor instead of further narrowing their already limited resource base.
This can be done by several different ways. Perhaps the best alternative would be to demand, that if there will be carbon storage forests, only trees producing food for human consumption should be planted in them. Also, the carbon storage forests should be open for the local people, so that they can collect edible fruits, nuts, pods, seeds and mushrooms from them, gather dry branches or cones that have dropped from the trees for fuel, and let their domestic animals graze and browse the undergrowth after the trees have attained a size after which cattle or goats can no longer harm them. The programmes could also emphasize the planting of food-producing trees that can easily survive bush and forest fires.
We should perhaps agree to and support such arrangements, on three important conditions. First, just like in the Bonn agreement, governments should also in the future be able to implement only a certain per cent of their emission reductions through joint ventures, by absorbing carbon dioxide into the forests or through purchasing carbon sinks or additional emission quotas from other countries. It is important that the governments have a strong enough incentive to develop energy saving technologies and renewable energies. Also, the possibilities to absorb carbon dioxide into forest biomass are limited, and some of these possibilities must be reserved for taking some of the already existing carbon dioxide out from the atmosphere. Second, carbon sinks should only be included if the income from establishing and maintaining carbon storage forests will be divided between the governments and the local people. Third, forests should only be counted as carbon storage forests if they contain food-producing trees and if they will be kept open for the local people.
This probably is the most important issue: whether the programmes are to be implemented in a way that would appropriate more resources into the hands of the poor, or whether they would lead to the further narrowing of the resource base the poor depend on.

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