United Nations Climate Summit Madrid
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Almost always, when climate protection becomes concrete, dispute is the result. Kohlersusstieg, prohibition of the internal combustion engine, more wind turbines: every step in the right direction provokes opposition. The protection of the forest is a rare exception - the desire to protect it bridges the sometimes deep trenches in the CO2 dispute. The tree as the lowest common denominator in climate protection. From this fact, companies have made a business model in times of ever more urgent warnings for more climate protection.
Especially in developing countries, many so-called forest projects have sprung up in recent years to help offset the CO2 released in European countries effectively - and without any controversial measures in their own country. That's the promise.
In Uganda alone, thousands of hectares of pine plantations were created. The Norwegian timber company Green Resources planted it ten years ago. Today, most pines are big and powerful CO2 storage. Thanks to the global carbon market, on which emission rights are traded, the group gets straightforward money for its pines: for every tonne of CO2 that is stored in the growing trees, the company receives an emission right. That can sell it to other companies or even countries that can improve their carbon footprint. Green Resources will also receive up to one million dollars per fiscal year. His biggest customer is the Swedish energy agency SEA.
What happens to the carbon dioxide when the trees are felled?
The catch: The bound CO2 is only temporarily stored in the wood. Because the core business of the Group is not climate protection, but the production of wood products such as beams or furniture. The planted pines are therefore felled at the latest after 20 years. No one checks what exactly happens to the logs and how they are processed. However, this is not entirely irrelevant, because if the wood should weather or even be burned, the climate protection project would become a zero-sum game for the planet: the CO2 bound for years escapes back into the atmosphere.
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For many timber companies, these lax rules are a win-win situation. First they earn on the trees as climate protectors, then on the boards and planks of their trunks.
"CO2 colonialism," call the critic. While European countries simply continue their fossil lifestyle, they offset their poor carbon footprint with climate change projects in the South. Although not all projects are ecologically questionable. But the so-called carbon market is young and prone to greenwashing.
Many countries do not manage to stick to their own climate goals. Of the 197 countries that have signed the World Climate Treaty, hardly any other country is well on the way to rebuilding its economy in a climate-neutral manner. Because that is often expensive, calls for investments in the billions - and often meets with resistance from the population. From the point of view of rich countries like Germany, climate protection in developing countries is cost-effective.
Also under the umbrella of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which will come into force from 2020, interstate CO2 offsets should be possible. The 197 states are currently negotiating this in Madrid at the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference. There are, however, tangible arguments about the rules for the global carbon market. The Federal Environment Ministry speaks on request of a "difficult bargaining position", because it rings around the best possible solution in a "technically highly complex topic".
85 percent of all compensation projects could be useless for the climate
Rules have to be made that guarantee that climate protection projects will be ecologically and socially compatible in the future and that they will actually save CO2. This is precisely the crux of the negotiations, explains Lambert Schneider from the Öko-Institut, who has been monitoring such climate protection projects at the UN so far. "A major weakness is the questionable 'additionality' of the projects". Many of the technical retrofits, afforestation or expansion of renewable energies, which are designated as a climate protection project, were already planned - with or without CO2 trading.
However, these CO2 compensations only make sense if the wind farm or the planted tree were not planned anyway and the emissions are also permanently removed from the atmosphere - ie permanently. Some companies had created a second source of income through dubious projects - but the planet was not helped, criticized Lambert Schneider.
Accordingly, the climate protection record is meager: The Öko-Institut calculated that 85 percent of the projects did not save any additional emissions. Many savings have even been charged twice and overestimated.
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The fact that these abuses repeat under the Paris World Climate Agreement, wants to prevent the Federal Environment Ministry now. The CO2 trade under the umbrella of the UN should not lead to the countries bailing freely. "The CO2 rights from climate protection projects under the Paris Agreement serve first and foremost to reduce emissions even further than previously planned," said a ministry spokesman. It is not about the climate plans of the states too beautiful.
Because the voluntary climate goals, which the 197 states have given, are not sufficient, the countries would have to refill anyway in the coming years. The purchase of CO2 rights from such climate protection projects could help here . New cases of fraud would then have to be prevented by strict rules, the Federal Environment Ministry demands.
The airlines are expected to demand 3.7 billion emission allowances by 2035 alone
Not everyone sees it that way. Especially developing and emerging countries expect a lot from the trade and try to dilute the rules. Example Brazil: The country has the largest rainforest in the world - and with it a lot of capital, which can throw it into the balance of CO2 trading. The state can thus pay for non-felling as well as reforestation - with CO2 rights that it sells to countries like Germany.
At the same time, however, Brazil wants to be able to calculate the emissions it has saved itself - this would double its carbon footprint. For such "double counting" there should be no room for maneuver, according to the German Ministry of the Environment. The task of the negotiations in Madrid was "to resolve these regulatory issues credibly."
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Over the next few years, it could come despite the abuses to a veritable CO2 trade boom, believes compensation expert Schneider. The reason is also the demand from airlines (read more here). According to an international agreement, they will have to offset part of their emissions with a transitional period from 2020 onwards. The airlines alone could need around 3.7 billion emission rights by 2035.
However, if at the UN climate summit in Madrid countries can not agree on strict rules and controls for the carbon market, carbon trading could become the biggest loophole of the agreement. Projects like the pine plantations in Uganda instead of real forest projects could then become the rule.