Projects to Study Links Between Forests and Global Warming
10/22/99
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Title: CLIMATE & Forests: Filling the Data Gaps
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 22, 1999
BONN, Germany, October 22, 1999 (ENS) - The linkages between global
forests and global warming are complex and not enough is known about
what actually happens on the ground. To answer some of the most
pressing questions, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation of the
Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has outlined two
high priority forest information gathering projects.
The project outlines will be presented at the upcoming set of climate
change negotiations opening October 25 in Bonn where 5,000 people,
including 80 to 100 Ministers, are expected to work out specific
solutions that will encourage ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by
November 2000.
The first is a regional project that can develop default values for
emission factors and activity data in the
land-use change and forestry sector for selected ecological zones.
There is a need to improve emission factors and activity data for
national greenhouse gas emission inventories, as the default values
given in the IPCC Guidelines are often at global, biome or
continental level. This leads to large uncertainties when used at
regional or national level for different vegetation types.
This information gathering can also provide baseline values to
resolve the problem that land categories used in the IPCC guidelines
are not compatible with the land categories used in the regions or
countries.
Activity data that require regional default values include:
* above ground biomass before conversion and after conversion
* annual growth rate of above-ground biomass in forests and abandoned
* land for different periods
* annual uptake of carbon in soil
* fraction of biomass left for decay
The second project is a forest carbon inventory programme for the
collection of activity data, building on existing programs.
Long-term monitoring is needed to establish reliable activity data
for forests, and the existing forest inventory studies do not cover
all the activity data required for the work under the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change.
This project will develop methods for conducting forest inventories
incorporating all the activity data required for the greenhouse gas
emission inventories. National experts will have to be trained in the
use of forest carbon inventory methods. Regional networks to promote
exchange of information will be established.