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Seeing the Forests as well as the (Trillion) Trees in Corporate Climate Strategies

2020; Elsevier BV; Volume: 2; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.oneear.2020.05.006

2590-3330

Frances Seymour,

Plant responses to elevated CO2

Largely driven by the corporate sector, the recent surge of interest in trees as a solution to climate change has a distinct emphasis on planting trees. Realizing anticipated benefits will require managing the risks and trade-offs of land-use interventions and embracing the imperative of protecting existing forests. Largely driven by the corporate sector, the recent surge of interest in trees as a solution to climate change has a distinct emphasis on planting trees. Realizing anticipated benefits will require managing the risks and trade-offs of land-use interventions and embracing the imperative of protecting existing forests. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 1.5°C report made clear the drastic emission reductions needed by 2030 if we are to avoid irreversible negative impacts from climate change.1Masson-Delmotte V. Zhai P. Pörtner H.-O. Roberts D. Skea J. Shukla P.R. Pirani A. Moufouma-Okia W. Péan C. Pidcock R. Global Warming of 1.5°C. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/Google Scholar As attention focuses on the target of balancing emissions and removals by 2050, the role of the private sector in achieving these goals is becoming increasingly visible, and many companies are developing their own decarbonization strategies. But a recognition that it will take longer to abate some fossil fuel emissions within a company’s value chain than others and that some residual emissions are inevitable has spurred interest in the mitigation potential of trees. Shell’s strategy for reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 includes reforestation, Mastercard has launched a campaign to plant 100 million trees over 5 years, and Microsoft has committed to planting 250,000 trees in 2020 alone. The Trillion Trees platform, launched at the Davos World Economic Forum in January 2020, aspires to mobilize a “global reforestation community” to meet these goals. Recent corporate commitments are entering an already crowded field of initiatives and targets related to forests and trees, including REDD+ (a set of efforts initiated under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2007 to reduce carbon emissions from forests), the Bonn Challenge (launched by the government of Germany in 2011 to restore 350 million hectares of forest by 2030), and the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests (ten goals endorsed by some 200 governments, companies, and civil society groups). Although more attention on the roles of trees in climate mitigation is a good thing, history and science caution that the impacts of tree-related interventions depend on a host of social, political, and ecological factors. These factors are raising concerns that some of the new private-sector support for trees could be misdirected to activities that are suboptimal or even counterproductive to stated goals. Corporate officials seeking to incorporate trees into their climate strategies can be forgiven for being confused about society’s expectations given that the situation is confusing and dynamic. For example, as of mid-2020, the Science Based Targets initiative is defining guidance on net-zero claims, and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is developing standards on how companies should account for emissions and removals from land use and land-use change. In the meantime, awareness of lessons learned from past tree-planting efforts and the mitigation potential of protecting forests can help companies increase the effectiveness and credibility of their efforts. The new corporate initiatives are entering a contentious debate regarding the appropriate role of planting trees in climate-mitigation strategies. Sensitivities are heightened by the history of reforestation (planting trees in areas that were once forested) and afforestation (planting trees on land not previously forested), which is fraught with cautionary tales. A forest-management paradigm dating to the colonial era focused on trees primarily as sources of timber and fuelwood and often ignored other social and ecological functions. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s 1948 definition of forest, which was designed for assessing wood-harvesting potential, did not distinguish between natural and planted forests.2Chazdon R.L. Brancalion P.H.S. Laestadius L. Bennett-Curry A. Buckingham K. Kumar C. Moll-Rocek J. Vieira I.C. Wilson S.J. When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restoration.Ambio. 2016; 45: 538-550Crossref PubMed Scopus (212) Google Scholar A singular focus on wood products, especially when inattentive to complex local circumstances, often caused harm to people and nature. In the worst cases, the livelihoods of women, poorer households, or even entire communities were displaced by commercial plantations. Afforestation with non-native species disrupted fragile ecosystems. For example, South Africa continues to grapple with the legacy of afforestation decades ago as invasive exotic species that escaped from plantations dry up streams and threaten the country’s unique biodiversity.3Bennett B.M. Kruger F.J. Forestry and Water Conservation in South Africa: History, Science and Policy. ANU Press, 2015https://doi.org/10.22459/FWCSA.11.2015Crossref Google Scholar Further, many past reforestation efforts failed to meet their own objectives to produce timber or fuelwood. They suffered low survival rates because they did not address the causes of forest loss in the first place, such as uncontrolled grazing or burning. Others foundered as a result of conflicts over land tenure or inadequate incentives for maintaining new plantings. For example, despite some US$1 billion in subsidies for industrial tree plantations in Indonesia in the 1990s, fewer than half of those plantations performed well in terms of timber production.4World BankSustaining economic growth, rural livelihoods, and environmental benefits: strategic options for forest assistance in Indonesia (English).http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/986501468049447840/Sustaining-economic-growth-rural-livelihoods-and-environmental-benefits-strategic-options-for-forest-assistance-in-IndonesiaDate: 2007Google Scholar Planting trees with a singular focus on climate mitigation could similarly go awry. The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land warned that large-scale reforestation and afforestation could increase competition for land, raise food prices, and threaten food security.5Shukla P.R. Skea J. Calvo Buendia E. Masson-Delmotte V. Pörtner H.-O. Roberts D.C. Zhai P. Slade R. Connors S. van Diemen R. Climate Change and Land. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2019https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/Google Scholar The World Resources Report cautioned that large-scale reforestation to mitigate climate change “will be possible only if enough agricultural land is ‘liberated’ through highly successful efforts to slow growth in food demand and boost agricultural productivity.”6Searchinger T. Waite R. Hanson C. Ranganathan J. Creating a Sustainable Food Future. World Resources Institute, 2019Google Scholar Last year, a study estimating the global mitigation potential of increased tree cover caused alarm with the implication that biodiverse grasslands should be subject to afforestation. The authors clarified that “restoration does not mean planting trees everywhere. … It means only allowing ecosystems to recover to a natural state, including ecosystems with 0% of tree cover.”7Bastin J.F. Finegold Y. Garcia C. Gellie N. Lowe A. Mollicone D. Rezende M. Routh D. Sacande M. Sparrow B. et al.Response to comments on “the global tree restoration potential.”.Science. 2019; 366: eaay8108Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar Many have questioned the degree to which afforestation is even an effective way to meet climate-mitigation objectives.8Bond W.J. Stevens N. Midgley G.F. Lehmann C.E.R. The trouble with trees: afforestation plans for Africa.Trends Ecol. Evol. 2019; 34: 963-965Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar Moreover, a 2010 Center for International Forestry Research study estimated that meeting Indonesia’s emission-reduction objectives through industrial tree plantations would require an area twice as large as the country.9Verchot L.V. Petkova E. Obidzinski K. Atmadja S. Yuliani E.L. Dermawan A. Murdiyarso D. Amira S. Reducing Forestry Emissions in Indonesia. Center for International Forestry Research, 2010Google Scholar Fortunately for newcomers to the tree-planting arena, lessons learned from previous experience and new science are informing a more sophisticated practice of forest landscape restoration (FLR). FLR is defined as “a process to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded landscapes within biomes with the natural potential to support trees.”10Laestadius L. Reytar K. Maginnis S. Saint-Laurent C. Demystifying the world’s forest landscape restoration opportunities.https://www.wri.org/blog/2015/03/demystifying-worlds-forest-landscape-restoration-opportunitiesDate: 2015Google Scholar Regaining ecological integrity implies a preference for native species, whereas meeting the needs of local communities means encompassing activities focused on local livelihood and resilience objectives such as agroforestry (incorporating trees into agricultural cropping) and regreening (farmer-managed natural regeneration).11Reig C. Winterbottom R. Scaling up Regreening: Six Steps to Success. World Resources Institute, 2015Google Scholar FLR places particular emphasis on up-front identification of the goals of restoration efforts with relevant stakeholders and monitoring progress toward those goals.12Buckingham K. Ray S. Granizo C.G. Toh L. Stolle F. Zoveda F. Reytar K. Zamora R. Ndunda P. Landsberg F. et al.The Road to Restoration: A Guide to Identifying Priorities and Indicators for Monitoring Forest and Landscape Restoration. World Resources Institute, 2019Google Scholar As implied by the term, FLR integrates the impacts of various interventions at broader scales by linking stand-level reforestation or afforestation, patch-level conservation, and trees in agricultural fields as elements of larger land-use systems. FLR need not even involve tree planting given that less severely degraded landscapes can regenerate naturally if protected from harm. Although commercial tree plantations have their role in meeting society’s needs for wood products, some question whether establishment of such plantations should count as restoration at all. A 2019 article called attention to the large portion of Bonn Challenge targets composed of plantations and urged giving preference to natural regeneration as the most effective strategy for meeting climate objectives.13Lewis S.L. Wheeler C.E. Mitchard E.T.A. Koch A. Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon.Nature. 2019; 568: 25-28Crossref PubMed Scopus (177) Google Scholar However, one of the ways in which the forest-restoration movement differs from past reforestation efforts is its attentiveness to a broader set of objectives beyond either timber production or carbon storage, such as diversifying local incomes, establishing wildlife corridors, and maintaining watershed functions. Indeed, FLR’s responsiveness to local priorities implies possible trade-offs with climate mitigation, as discussed further below. Companies will need to assess their own mix of objectives for tree-related investments to select those that are the best fit. The new corporate tree-planting initiatives are explicitly pegged to climate objectives and are often conveyed in a new jargon of nature-based solutions and natural climate solutions. These terms are usually used to refer to a range of land-based interventions that result in emission reductions and removals, but they can also refer to activities focused on adaptation. For example, supporting farmers to incorporate trees into croplands or urban residents to plant trees in cities could have modest impacts on carbon storage but significant impacts on resilience. The IPCC provides a useful comparison of 40 options for responding to climate change and assesses for each its mitigation potential, adaptation potential, and effects on other challenges, such as ensuring food security.5Shukla P.R. Skea J. Calvo Buendia E. Masson-Delmotte V. Pörtner H.-O. Roberts D.C. Zhai P. Slade R. Connors S. van Diemen R. Climate Change and Land. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2019https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/Google Scholar Although some of those effects are region or context specific, the comparison can help prospective investors in tree-based mitigation strategies identify those that are “no regrets” options. What’s unfortunate is that the new corporate initiatives’ selective focus on planting trees risks diverting urgently needed attention away from the most important “no regrets” option of all: protecting forests that are still standing. The IPCC report concludes that “reducing deforestation and forest degradation rates represents one of the most effective and robust options for climate change mitigation, with large mitigation benefits globally,”5Shukla P.R. Skea J. Calvo Buendia E. Masson-Delmotte V. Pörtner H.-O. Roberts D.C. Zhai P. Slade R. Connors S. van Diemen R. Climate Change and Land. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2019https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/Google Scholar not to mention forests’ immense value for biodiversity. Because global warming is a function of the residence time of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere, avoided emissions now are more valuable than removals later. Avoiding the huge pulse of emissions from the conversion of forests in the near term has a bigger climate-mitigation impact than planting trees on a similar area (and usually at significantly higher cost), the latter of which will pull carbon out of the air only gradually over the course of decades, as depicted in Figure 1. In fact, a recent study introduced the concept of “irrecoverable carbon,” which cannot be replaced through restoration between now and 2050 in ecosystems subject to conversion.15Goldstein A. Turner W.R. Spawn S.A. Anderson-Teixeira K.J. Cook-Patton S. Fargione J. Gibbs H.K. Griscom B. Hewson J.H. Howard J.F. et al.Protecting irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems.Nat. Clim. Chang. 2020; 10: 287-295Crossref Scopus (40) Google Scholar The authors estimate that tropical moist forests have the largest irrecoverable carbon stock, but peatlands, mangroves, and old-growth temperate forests are also significant. And yet such forests continue to be lost at a rapid rate. According to Global Forest Watch, the world lost an area of tropical primary forests the size of Belgium in 2018.16Weisse M. Goldman E. The world lost a Belgium-sized area of primary rainforests last year.https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/04/world-lost-belgium-sized-area-primary-rainforests-last-yearDate: 2019Google Scholar The focus of many recent initiatives on tree planting to the exclusion of protecting remaining forests is based on a misconception that only removals count as positive climate action. Microsoft’s explanation17Smith B. Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030.https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/01/16/microsoft-will-be-carbon-negative-by-2030/Date: 2020Google Scholar of its commitment to becoming carbon negative by 2030 provides one example:[Paying] someone not to cut down the trees on the land they own … is a good thing, but in effect it pays someone not to do something that would have a negative impact. It doesn’t lead to planting more trees that would have a positive impact by removing carbon. In fact, the atmosphere is indifferent to whether a ton of carbon is not released into the atmosphere or is removed (if we assume either could happen at the same moment). But people living on Earth’s surface are not indifferent: standing forests provide a wealth of other benefits not quickly or easily restored, including moderating local temperature extremes and generating rainfall at great distances. If we don’t provide financial incentives for protecting forests, forests will continue to be lost, creating ever more land in need of restoration. Of course, protecting forests for climate mitigation is not without risk. REDD+ negotiations and programs have developed social and environmental safeguards to protect the substantive and procedural rights of indigenous and local communities and ensure that claimed avoided emissions are real. To confirm adherence to safeguards, we should limit corporate funding for REDD+ programs to those certified to a credible standard. Many companies are already working hard to get deforestation out of their supply chains and financial portfolios; now it’s time to get proactive support for avoided deforestation and degradation (the REDD in REDD+) into their climate-action agendas. Tree-related climate action must always be mindful of potential unintended negative consequences for people and nature, as highlighted above. Adopting FLR approaches that have incorporated lessons learned from past experience can help guide corporate support of initiatives that effectively manage those risks. Another kind of risk emphasized above—diverting attention from the forest-protection agenda—could be addressed through broadening the focal aperture of the new initiatives to a broader set of nature-based solutions and supporting their integration. Combining forest protection, restoration, and supply-chain efforts at the level of entire jurisdictions is one of the most promising approaches to sustainable land use. Although corporate-supported one-off tree-planting campaigns or projects can be a useful way to raise employee morale and communicate with consumers, they are more likely to generate sustained climate and sustainable development benefits if they are embedded in more sophisticated long-term FLR and protection efforts. In addition, corporate tree-planting initiatives pose risks to the success of the climate agenda itself. Although finance is desperately needed for forest protection and restoration—and indeed both are essential elements of any climate strategy—it would be a Pyrrhic victory if such finance were to come at the expense of ambition to reduce emissions from fossil fuels. Activists will be alert to the risk of “greenwash” as they examine claims about the role of trees in contributing to corporate net-zero strategies and the “climate neutrality” of specific products. Any use of trees for carbon credits to offset fossil fuel emissions in compliance markets will have to be subject to firm guardrails if we are to ensure that such use accelerates rather than delays progress toward the goals of the Paris Agreement. In sum, the new corporate interest in trees is welcome because an all-of-the-above strategy is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change. For the new tree-related initiatives to meet their full potential, they need to build on the insights of the FLR movement, include commensurate support for maintaining the remaining forests, and manage risks to climate ambition itself. F.S. serves as board chair of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions, as an adviser to the Climate and Land Use Alliance, and as a consultant to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.