October 2016

Carbon storage in Washington’s forests is too small and too risky to play a serious role as a climate change mitigation tool

The eyes of the nation are on Washington state as we vote on a policy that can help fight climate change. Initiative 732 could be the first carbon tax in the U.S. — one that independent Sightline Institute says “would launch Washington to a position of global leadership on climate action.” The scientific community almost universally agrees that climate change (and ocean acidification) are severe threats that demand a rapid response, with putting a price on fossil fuel CO₂ emissions being a top priority.

Far and away the single biggest contributor to climate change is CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Indeed, global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel emissions in recent years have been roughly 10 times higher than emissions from the next largest global source, land use change, including deforestation (Le Quéré et al., 2015). I-732 is designed to make carbon polluters pay for emitting CO₂ into the atmosphere, a simple, important step in driving down those emissions.

Despite the small size of carbon fluxes from forests, enhancing carbon storage in forests is often discussed in Washington state as a tool to fight climate change. There was one such claim in a Seattle Times OpEd from October 21 by Mathew Randazzo. We challenge these claims that forest carbon sequestration should be part of the solution. Randazzo does not spell out in any detail what he means. As always, details matter in such discussions, as the science is complex. We focus here on some of the best available science on the climate and carbon storage impacts of forests, and provide references at the bottom of this article from some of the premier scientific journals in the world.

We also point out that the claims by the Randazzo piece and the Seattle Times editorial board position that I-732 would undermine the state budget have been thoroughly debunked, and we direct you to Sightline.org for a detailed analysis.

It is easy to understand why many wish carbon storage in Washington’s forests to be a viable tool to fight climate change. Such a solution, at first glance, seems like it could support the local forestry industry and create local jobs. However, mitigating climate change requires responses that make scientific sense. Devoting resources to forest carbon sequestration is largely a distraction from the real work needed to mitigate climate change, which is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, most importantly of CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion.

Before we explain the counterintuitive science, we wish to acknowledge at the start that there are many excellent reasons to support planting trees in our state and to support the local forestry industry. However, mitigating the threat of climate change is not among those reasons, based on the available science.

In temperate parts of the world (mid to high latitudes), such as the Pacific northwest, the impacts of forests on climate are complex. Forest growth does take up CO₂ from the atmosphere, which is the impact on climate many think of. However, forests have other, lesser known impacts on climate as well, including trapping moisture below the forest canopy and altering the way sunlight is reflected off the landscape (termed albedo). In temperate regions such as Washington state, forests can actually warm the climate via these impacts on trapping moisture and reflectivity (albedo) more than they cool the climate by taking up CO₂. This has been pointed out in a recent article on reforestation and forest management in Europe over the last 250 years that caused a net warming, not a net cooling (Naudts et al, 2016).

It is in the tropical and subtropical latitudes, far south of Washington state, where science indicates carbon storage in forests could have the most beneficial effect on the world’s climate and could possibly help to buy time until society reduces fossil fuel emissions substantially (Houghton et al, 2015). Even in the tropics, relying on forest carbon storage is risky. Carbon stores could be re-released back into the atmosphere at any point in response to fire or disease, each of which can be made worse by climate change. Indeed, one recent study of forests in the Amazon region concluded that forests there went from taking up CO₂ to releasing it during one dry year (Gatti et al, 2014). Furthermore, there have been suggestions that tropical forest may become a source of CO₂ even in the tropics, in response to greater extremes of rainfall (Gatti et al, 2014). In order for carbon storage even in tropical forests to be beneficial, it must remain stored essentially permanently (for many hundreds to thousands of years). No one can guarantee that future climate change, disease, and/or land use change won’t cause release of this forest carbon back into the atmosphere, which would bring us back to the starting point, before any forest carbon storage efforts were even attempted.

It is urgent that society act quickly to minimize the risks posed by both climate change and ocean acidification. However, any solution must stand up to the rigorous test of the best available science. We quote from some journals cited below.

• “Considering carbon storage on land as a means to ‘offset’ CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuels (an idea with wide currency) is scientifically flawed” (Mackey et al, 2013).
• “Today’s forest management is more of a gamble than a scientific debate” (Bellassen and Luyssaert, 2014).
• “Above-ground carbon in forests represents a vulnerable pool of carbon, subject to droughts, fires, insects and other disturbances. Thus, the management of forests to accumulate carbon must not delay or dilute the phasing-out fossil fuel use. On the contrary, the deliberate accumulation of carbon on land may be of little long-term benefit” (Houghton et al, 2015).
• “Relying on biospheric sequestration is not without risk, because such sequestration is reversible from either climate changes, direct human actions, or a combination of both” (Pan et al, 2011).

The best science tells us that relying on storage of carbon in Washington state forests is risky at best, and quite possibly counterproductive. It is also in many ways a distraction from the essential efforts to reduce emissions of CO₂ from fossil fuels.

Passing initiative 732 would represent one important step that Washington can take right now to begin to reduce fossil fuel use and address climate change. Vote yes.

John Crusius, Ph.D.

Richard Gammon, Emeritus Professor, UW Department of Chemistry, UW School of Oceanography

Steven Emerson, Professor, UW School of Oceanography

References

Bellassen, V., and S. Luyssaert (2014), Managing forests in uncertain times, Nature, 506(7487), 153-155.

Brienen, R. J. W., et al. (2015), Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink, Nature, 519(7543), 344-+, doi:10.1038/nature14283.

Gatti, L. V., et al. (2014), Drought sensitivity of Amazonian carbon balance revealed by atmospheric measurements, Nature, 506(7486), 76-+, doi:10.1038/nature12957.

Houghton, R. A., B. Byers, and A. A. Nassikas (2015), COMMENTARY: A role for tropical forests in stabilizing atmospheric CO₂, NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE, 5, 1022-1023.

Le Quéré, C., et al. (2015), Global Carbon Budget 2014, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 7, 47-85,

771 doi: 10.5194/essd-7-47-2015.

Mackey, B., I. C. Prentice, W. Steffen, J. I. House, D. Lindenmayer, H. Keith, and S. Berry (2013), Untangling the confusion around land carbon science and climate change mitigation policy, Nature Climate Change, 3(6), 552-557, doi:10.1038/nclimate1804.

Naudts, K., Y. Chen, M. J. McGrath, J. Ryder, A. Valade, J. Otto, and S. Luyssaert (2016), Europe’s forest management did not mitigate climate warming, Science, 351(6273), 597-600, doi:10.1126/science.aad7270.

Pan, Y. D., et al. (2011), A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests, Science, 333(6045), 988-993, doi:10.1126/science.1201609.

PHOTO: Abigail Keenan via Unsplash.com

WE CAN WIN! 

Ballots are out and voting has begun! This is it, everyone. As the philosopher Seneca said – “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

We are prepared and we have a tremendous opportunity. Say it out loud with us, “we can win”. We can win!

Donations matched up to 20K to put I-732 on TV so WE CAN WIN! 

Like we said last week, the doors and the phones are our best play – but not our only play. We are finally getting a little bit of air support, in part thanks to our bird loving friends over at Audubon WA, for our ground game. They’ve created a simple but fun ad for I-732 but we need your help to get it before voters! Check out the ad on Youtube and tell us what you think in the comment section then read on to help us get it on TV.

A donor has put up $20,000 as a match if we can raise it by 10/30 specifically for CarbonWA to push this ad out to undecided voters on TV. I-732 supporters have already managed to get the ad on TV in a few spots but they can’t run it for longer than a handful of days as it stands now. If we complete this match we can get this ad on the air for an additional day – maybe even two.

 (more…)

The Yes on 732 campaign thanks the businesses that have shown their support for promoting clean energy and fighting climate change:

cafezippy.com

tripedicab.com

tdimotors.net

Allumia endorses I-732! We applaud the hard work of CarbonWA and the many volunteers who have created the opportunity to pass legislation that will equitably internalize the negative externalities of regional carbon emissions and set the stage for more companies, states, regions, and countries to do the same.

allumia.com

seattleelectricbike.net

cafe-turko.com

drdansbiodiesel.com

Kronos, Vashon Island

vashonsnapdragon.com

thsrestaurant.com

chacocanyoncafe.com

a-rsolar.com

Thrive Café

Richard Britz, Architect and Planner

Vashon Rider Rehab and Consulting

Get the details behind the nation’s first carbon tax swap

This fall, Washington voters will decide whether to pass I-732, an initiative that tackles the root causes of climate change while making our tax system fairer overall. The world is warming at an alarming rate, and putting an effective price on carbon emissions is the single most important thing we can do to reverse this trend. These news stories will help you understand why voting Yes on I-732 will move the state toward two goals: cleaner energy and fairer taxes.

There’s a cheap, proven fix to the world’s biggest problem

• Washington’s Initiative-732 would make a bad thing — pollution — more expensive by putting a tax on each ton of carbon dioxide created by cars, power plants and the like.

More importantly, doing so would throw economic muscle behind clean energy, shorter commutes, cleaner air and smarter cities. It would use the market, not regulations, to choose winners and losers in the clean tech race. It would help Washington state, in the apt words of the initiative’s promoters, fulfill its moral responsibility to leave a livable planet for future generations. And it plans do so without wrecking the economy or growing government.

• Nearly everyone who studies climate change agrees governments should put a price on carbon if we’re going to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement. That treaty … sets the goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Basically, that means getting off fossil fuels this century. A price on pollution would help accomplish that.
• Carbon emissions in British Columbia dropped 5% to 15% because of the tax. Fuel use, meanwhile, plunged 16% between 2008 and 2013, according to a research synthesis by the Pembina Institute. It went up 3% in the rest of Canada. The economy in British Columbia slightly outpaced the rest of Canada. According to the premier’s office, clean energy jobs are up 12.5% in the same time frame. So the sky not fall. The economy is booming.

“Carbon Washington’s proposal is a brilliant first step.”

• “This is an example of what a carbon tax ought to look like,” said Shi-Ling Hsu, associate dean for environmental programs at Florida State University’s law school and author of “The Case for a Carbon Tax.”
• “It’s a well-designed policy,” said Adele Morris, senior fellow and the policy director for the Climate and Energy Economics Project at the Brookings Institution. “It makes a lot of sense for Washington — and I hope voters give it a chance.”

It could be the nation’s first carbon tax. And environmentalists are fighting over it

• While support from individual politicians has come largely from Democrats in the legislature, the initiative has garnered endorsements from a few key Republican state senators as well. It’s also gained substantial support from the scientific community. Last week, more than 50 climate scientists from the University of Washington published an open letter expressing their support for Initiative 732.
• “The message that we heard over and over from people was one of urgency,” she said. “People felt like they did not have time to wait for another solution. This is the only initiative on our ballot. It does what we need it to do, which is reduce the carbon emissions that are causing climate change. …I think for Audubon, climate policy isn’t really about money. It really is about what will reduce the carbon emissions.”
• As crunch time nears, a group of millennials from the I-732 campaign have published an open letter to the leaders of some of the national groups that have failed to support the initiative, calling on them to change their stance. Should the initiative pass, Bauman hopes that it will lead to similar measures on a national scale.
• “We think we have a great shot at winning a policy that’s not only going to make a big difference in Washington State, but that can potentially set the stage for bipartisan action nationally,” he said.

Time for a carbon tax? A former Bush official says yes

• Voters in Washington state may show the way  Nov. 8 when they decide on a referendum that would assess a carbon tax on coal, oil and natural gas, a move aimed at lowering emissions that contribute to climate change without digging deeply into people’s wallets.
• Backed by a campaign called Carbon Washington, the initiative is designed to be revenue-neutral, gradually increasing the carbon tax while reducing sales and other state taxes. A similar levy was established by neighboring British Columbia in 2008.
• Clay Sell, a former top energy official under President George W. Bush … told a Washington, D.C., audience the other day that it’s time to end  the political debate over the cause of climate change and address the phenomenon with a business-friendly policy.

“I think there are some lessons that could be learned from the initiative in Washington state about a revenue-neutral carbon tax.”

• “The great challenge for the next administration using the bully pulpit will be to end this fiction, act upon the science and design a carbon pricing scheme that will provide the certainty and efficiency that energy investors desire.”
• “I hope both (political) parties will take that up, as it will allow the benefits of all clean energy technologies to be properly valued in the marketplace.”