FORESTS – Post Paris
The vital role of forests as climate moderators was endorsed for the first time in the history of climate negotiations. The Paris Agreement also acknowledged action is needed to move away from fossil fuels.
The Federal Government has just agreed to hand $4.7 million to the logging industry to further its research and development work for new markets. This could see a well-funded push towards burning native forests for electricity as ‘renewables’. This is totally at odds with the global agreement that mandates all countries to “conserve and enhance … sinks and reservoirs” – this means forests and other carbon storing ecosystems including oceans that draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The Paris Agreement also mentions reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation – i.e. logging. This policy should translate into protection of forests and the Turnbull Government will need to be reminded of how this agreement must be interpreted and acted on.
The group called Markets for Change (MfC) plans to pursue this newfound global acceptance of forests as part of the big solution. Along with many other environment groups across the country, it plans to pressure Australia’s decision makers to keep our forests standing – for climate and wildlife. MfC along with the Australian Forests and Climate Alliance have already been in dialogue with the biomass lobby as well as researching biomass burning plans already underway in Australia. EEG will be working on this issue as well as our forests are now in the sights of this industry.
Markets for Change urgently needs to crank up its campaign to educate and lobby the emerging bioenergy industry, and to keep all environment groups abreast of the evolving challenges.
They have a campaign that is waiting to go on why forests are needed for keeping the planet cool. They have good backing from Paris, and are asking for donations to bring to fruition the protection of forests for a safe climate.
Given that their capacity for this important focused work is greater than ours currently (we just take the buggers to court), please consider throwing a few dollars their way if you can.