Agro-forestry study may open carbon market to poor
By Daniel Wallis
NAIROBI (Reuters) - International researchers launched a $12 million study on Monday intended to help many of the world's poorest farmers benefit from multi-billion dollar schemes to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.
The 18-month Carbon Benefits Project will examine rural sites in Kenya, Niger, Nigeria and China to see how much carbon is stored in trees and soil when land is managed sustainably.
It is led by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Washington-based financial arm for international conventions on green issues.
Tropical deforestation accounts for a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Trees soak up carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they are burnt or rot.
Farming contributes as much to global warming as all the world's planes, cars and trucks, and that will increase as the world tries to feed an extra 3 billion people by 2050.
Putting a price on living trees and storing carbon in the soil could give developing countries an incentive to save forests and adopt more climate-friendly farming practices.
The new study would measure the impact on soil carbon of such practices, an area which lags measuring carbon in trees.
About 190 nations have agreed to thrash out a new U.N. climate treaty in December in Denmark that would step up the fight against global warming, which scientists say will bring more heat waves, droughts, floods and rising seas. Continued...
