Even Millions of Trees are Not Enough for Climate Change Monster! By James Reed
The Greenies and environmentalists are big on trees, unless the poor trees are in the way of the building of wind turbines, even more of as sacred object for them. Then the trees can be cut down in the millions. Normally though, the environmentalists note that trees are a good thing for the climate, soaking up carbon dioxide. Yet, are they good enough for the Green regime?
In New Zealand there was a major program linking the emissions trading scheme with incentives for forestry development. That led to the planting of millions of trees. Yet it was found not to be the end-all and be-all of carbon limitation. The New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, wrote in a report on land-use change, published May 22nd in Wellington, that "Pine production and permanent forestry are legitimate land uses." "But afforestation should not be incentivized by treating it as a cheap way to offset fossil fuel emissions."
The supposed reductions in carbon, via the carbon sink properties of trees, were not observed. This means that the climate change agenda will pursue its standard attempt to abandon fossil fuels in favour of so-called renewal energy resources, such as wind and solar. That is as we expected, as there will be no easy end to this battle, such as planting trees.
"Of all the solutions for a warming world, "plant more trees" seems pretty obvious.
But in New Zealand, which tested that premise by linking incentives for forestry development with its emissions trading scheme, the results have been more controversial and less effective than climate advocates hoped.
Now, after four years of frenetic planting, a prominent government watchdog has joined international agencies, industry groups and environmental advocates in calling for a radical overhaul, one that threatens a reversal of fortunes for investors in the recent forestry boom.
"Pine production and permanent forestry are legitimate land uses," Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton wrote in a report on land-use change, published May 22nd in Wellington. "But afforestation should not be incentivized by treating it as a cheap way to offset fossil fuel emissions."
It is an aggressive challenge to one of the world's most prominent campaigns for afforestation. Ingka Group, the largest global Ikea franchisee and a major investor in New Zealand forestry, said in an email that Upton's advice is "significant, and we are closely reviewing the potential impacts," adding that its long-term commitments in the country are unchanged. Other forestry investors say the ongoing debates are sapping confidence in the market.
"While uncertainty remains, New Zealand is missing a significant opportunity to grow its forest estate," said Phil Taylor, managing director of New Zealand forestry at Port Blakely, which owns 35,000 hectares of mixed species plantations. "It needs to be sorted out."
Since 2019, the country has added 175,000 hectares (432,000 acres) of forests, almost all the fast-growing, carbon-sucking Pinus radiata pine, helping New Zealand make progress toward its 2050 net zero goal. But the new growth has subsumed the nation's farmland, the beef-and-sheep lobby says, undermining the meat-and-dairy industry. Increased waste from forestry—the logs, leaves and branches known as "slash"—more than doubled the damage of the flooding caused by last year's Cyclone Gabrielle.
While those might be worthwhile trade-offs for significant long-term reductions in climate-warming CO2, the current system doesn't really achieve that either, experts say.
Forests do absorb a lot of carbon dioxide, but their efficiency wanes over time. To achieve the same environmental effect over decades, "you're going to have to keep planting more and more forests," said John Saunders, a senior researcher at Lincoln University's agribusiness and economics research unit. "That isn't actually solving the problem."
The seeds of New Zealand's recent forestry boom were planted in 2019, when the country's emissions trading scheme required companies to use only domestic measures to compensate for CO2. In practice, it prohibited companies from buying carbon offsets developed abroad to shrink their carbon footprint.
At the same time, the new rule amplified an existing, and unusual, feature of the policy. Companies doing business in New Zealand are allowed to offset 100% of their emissions with credits generated by domestic forest projects. Most countries limit the use of offsets to push more fundamental cuts to CO2 emissions.
The combination made forestry more lucrative almost overnight—not only could trees be harvested for timber, they could also generate the carbon credits that are valuable to local companies. Investors, including Germany's Munich Re and Japan's Sumitomo Corp., bought land. Ingka Group has purchased 23 separate tracts for forestry, although it notes that it doesn't generate or sell carbon credits.
The land-grab created opportunities for New Zealand farmers as well, driving up the price of land. The 30-year net present value of land with production forestry and carbon credits is NZ$21,300 per hectare, 144% more than the expected returns from sheep and beef, said Julian Ashby, chief insight officer at Beef + Lamb New Zealand, an industry group.
"The enormous additional returns from carbon means that foresters have been able to offer significantly more for land," Ashby said.
Since early 2021, the nation's foreign investment regulator has approved nearly 150 applications to buy more than 102,000 hectares of land for forestry, roughly two-thirds of which used to be farmland. The farm lobby has long been a vocal critic of the aggressive afforestation policy, calling it a threat to the beef, dairy, wool and sheepmeat that make up about 46% of the nation's annual exports.
"The government wanted more trees. The price of land went up so much and farmers couldn't compete," said Murray Hellewell, who raises sheep and beef on a 640-hectare farm on the South Island. One by one, his neighbors have sold to forestry companies, nearly surrounding Hellewell's farm with pines."
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