Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Searchinger, Timothy D.
• Hamburg, Steven P.
• Melillo, Jerry
• Chameides, William
• Havlik, Petr
• Kammen, Daniel M.
• Likens, Gene E.
• Lubowski, Ruben N.
• Obersteiner, Michael
• Oppenheimer, Michael
• Robertson, G. Philip
• Schlesinger, William H.
• Tilman, G. David

Titel

Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error

Ist Teil von

• Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 2009-10, Vol.326 (5952), p.527-528

Ort / Verlag

United States: American Association for the Advancement of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2009

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Science Online_科学在线

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Rules for applying the Kyoto Protocol and national cap-and-trade laws contain a major, but fixable, carbon accounting flaw in assessing bioenergy. The accounting now used for assessing compliance with carbon limits in the Kyoto Protocol and in climate legislation contains a far-reaching but fixable flaw that will severely undermine greenhouse gas reduction goals ( 1 ). It does not count CO 2 emitted from tailpipes and smokestacks when bioenergy is being used, but it also does not count changes in emissions from land use when biomass for energy is harvested or grown. This accounting erroneously treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral regardless of the source of the biomass, which may cause large differences in net emissions. For example, the clearing of long-established forests to burn wood or to grow energy crops is counted as a 100% reduction in energy emissions despite causing large releases of carbon.