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--></style><title>Contrary to earlier claims, unlogged forests better
at car</title></head><body>
<div><font color="#141413"><b>Rethinking forest carbon assessments to
account for policy institutions</b></font></div>
<div>Andrew Macintosh, Heather Keith and David Lindenmayer</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE | ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION | June 29,
2015 www.nature.com/natureclimatechange</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Abstract</div>
<div><font
face="Verdana"><u
>http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ncl</u
>imate2695.html</font></div>
<div>There has been extensive debate about whether the sustainable use
of forests (forest management aimed at producing a sustainable yield
of timber or other products) results in superior climate outcomes to
conservation (maintenance or enhancement of conservation values
without commercial harvesting) (1-8). Most of the relevant research
has relied on consequential life-cycle assessment (LCA), with the
results tending to show that sustainable use has lower net
greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions than conservation in the long term
(1-5). However, the literature cautions that results are sensitive to
forest- and market-related contextual factors: the carbon density of
the forests, silvicultural and wood processing practices, and the
extent to which wood products and forest bioenergy displace
carbon-intensive alternatives. Depending on these issues, conservation
can be better for the climate than sustainable use (1,6-8). Policy
institutions are another key contextual factor but, so far, they have
largely been ignored (1-6). Using a case study on the Southern
Forestry Region (SFR) of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, we show how
policy institutions can affect the assessed outcomes from alternative
forest management strategies. Our results highlight the need for
greater attention to be paid to policy institutions in forest carbon
research.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><b>----------------------------------------------------</b></div>
<div><b>The press release:</b></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">"Contrary to the findings of many
previous life-cycle analyses, the study found that, when policy
effects are accounted for, conserving the native forests of southeast
New South Wales resulted in better climate outcomes than if they
continued to be sustainably harvested."</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana">--------------------------</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana Bold">New study re-writes the rules of
carbon analysis</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><i>A new study has found analyses of
carbon emissions may be misleading as they failed to include the
impacts of policies such as trading schemes, emission caps or
quotas</i></font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><i><br>
</i>AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - PUBLIC
RELEASE: 30-JUN-2015</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">A new study published today in<i> Nature
Climate Change</i>
<<<u
>http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ncl</u
>imate2695.html>>has found analyses of carbon emissions may be
misleading as they failed to include the impacts of policies such as
trading schemes, emission caps or quotas.</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
"The inclusion of policy mechanisms can radically alter the
outcomes from life-cycle analyses and result in counter-intuitive
outcomes," said Associate Professor Andrew Macintosh from The
Australian National University (ANU) College of Law, lead author of
the study.</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
"Traditional life-cycle analysis would find a person who
regularly eats beef and builds their house with bricks and mortar has
a greater impact on the climate than a vegan with a wooden
house.</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
"But when the impacts of policy mechanisms are accounted for, the
simple dichotomies that so often characterise climate debates like
'lentils good, beef bad' and 'wood good, cement bad' become impossible
to maintain."</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
The paper develops a new framework for evaluating the impacts of
policy mechanisms in life-cycle analysis and applies it to the issue
of whether it is better for the climate to conserve native forests or
to harvest them sustainably to produce wood products.</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
Contrary to the findings of many previous life-cycle analyses, the
study found that, when policy effects are accounted for, conserving
the native forests of southeast New South Wales resulted in better
climate outcomes than if they continued to be sustainably
harvested.</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
"The results showed that conserving the native forests resulted
in significant reductions in domestic emissions over the 100-year
projection period; 79 to 85 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
equivalent, or almost 15 per cent of Australia's current annual
emissions," said co-author Professor David Lindenmayer, from ANU
Fenner School of Environment and Society.</font><font
face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana"><br>
"The simplest explanations for why conserving native forests
reduces emissions is that, when these forests are harvested, only a
small proportion of the biomass finds its way into long-lived wood
products and burning wood does not generate much energy.</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">"The applicable policy mechanisms
magnify these factors by shielding Australia from the emissions
embodied in substitute imported wood products and ensuring that, when
native forests are burnt for electricity, it displaces other types of
renewable energy generation like wind and solar rather than fossil
fuels," he said.<font size="-1" color="#1A1A1A"><br>
###</font></font><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#757575"><br>
</font></div>
<div><br></div>
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>--------------------------------------------------------------------<br
>
"The resulting flood calendar spans the last ca 270 years (AD
1740-AD 2007). Š.. Our record thus suggests climate warming is
favouring the occurrence of high magnitude torrential flood events in
high-altitude catchments."</font><br>
<font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000">B. Wilhelm et al.
Does global warming favour the occurrence of extreme floods in
European Alps? First evidences from a NW Alps proglacial lake sediment
record.<i> Climatic Change,</i> online 10 December 2011<br>
DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0376-2<br>
Received: 21 September 2009 / Accepted: 14 November 2011<br>
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