Forests would form part of a future climate change agreement, Phil Woolas, Environment Minister, said today.
Recently back from a United Nations informal gathering ahead of a key meeting in Bali next month, Mr Woolas said he expected that the US, Brazil and China would agree to include forestry in the negotiations on an international climate change framework post 2012.
Speaking on the first day of National Tree Week, he also said that the UK was one of the leading countries working on developing and trialling practical proposals for reducing emissions from deforestation.
Deforestation (forest loss) is the world's second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and this situation has to change if we are to rise to the global challenge of climate change, Mr Woolas told leading figures from government and the forestry, energy and environmental sectors at a conference in London.
The conference, entitled "Forests and climate change - a convenient truth?" was organised by the Forestry Commission to encourage action by the British forestry sector and others to tackle climate change.
Mr Woolas said the Government is tackling climate change on many fronts, adding,
"Major policy developments are taking place in the international and national arenas. The IPCC final conclusions last weekend confirmed the need for urgent global climate action.
" We need to take further practical actions to deliver results on the ground.
“A key goal of UK policy is to make forestry part of the process in Bali. After intensive lobbying of key countries across the world, we now expect support from China, Brazil and the US that this should be the case."
"The UK forestry sector has a great deal to offer. It has vast experience in restoring forests, in expanding forest cover, in managing woodland sustainably, and in developing an internationally accredited certification system for woodland management.
"Achieving certification showed that the key to success will lie in bringing a number of sectors together. It will again be essential to work across a range of sectors, and I'm pleased to see the range of experts and practitioners from so many sectors that have come together today to kick start this process."
Tim Rollinson, Director-General of the Forestry Commission, said:
"We know what needs to be done: the challenge is to turn that into practical reality, and today's conference is about starting a process for achieving action on the ground."
He said there are six key ways in which forestry can help meet the challenge of climate change:
· protecting and managing the forests that we already have;
· reducing deforestation;
· restoring the world's forest cover;
· using more sustainably produced wood for energy;
· using more sustainably produced wood as a substitute for other materials; and
· planning our forests so that they adapt to a changing climate.
More information about forests and climate change is available from www.forestry.gov.uk/climatechange.
NOTES TO EDITOR:
1. Emissions from deforestation account for about 18 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second biggest source after power generation - and bigger than the entire transport sector. About half the Earth's land area was forested 8000 years ago. It is now about 30%. Since 1850, deforestation has released about 120 gigatonnes (120 thousand million tonnes) of carbon into the atmosphere.
2. Centuries of deforestation left the UK with only about five per cent of the land area under forest cover 100 years ago. It is now about 12 per cent as a result of successive governments' policies of encouraging reforestation.
3. Sustainably managed forests on the right soils can be almost "carbon neutral", because the amount of carbon released to the atmosphere by harvested and dying trees roughly equals the amount locked up again by the growing young trees that replace them.
4. "Certification" of forests is a system for reassuring buyers of forest products that they come from well managed forests. The main standard used in the UK is the UK Woodland Assurance Standard (UKWAS), which is endorsed by the independent, international Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Many British forests, including all those managed by the Forestry Commission, are UKWAS certified, and their products may display the FSC logo. For further information visit www.ukwas.org.uk and www.fsc-uk.org.
5. When used to construct buildings, wood has the lowest energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of any commonly used building material. Replacing one cubic metre of concrete or red brick with the same volume of timber can save about a tonne of carbon emissions. And the longer a wood product remains in use, the longer the carbon remains stored within it. Similarly, the amount of carbon released when wood is burned as a fuel is roughly the same as the carbon locked up again by the next crop of young trees grown for fuel, in a perpetual, balanced cycle.
6. Some climate change is already inevitable, and forest planners have to ensure that their forests are adapted to survive the expected changes, for example by selecting species that are best adapted to the likely future conditions in the area, such as an increased incidence of droughts or floods.
7. The Forestry Commission is the government department for forestry in Great Britain. For further information, visit www.forestry.gov.uk.
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