Forestry holds the key to tackling global warming

Irish forests are expanding at such a significant rate they will prove to be one of the key ways to lock up more carbon dioxide and so help Ireland meet its targets for controlling greenhouse gases.

Dr Eugene Hendrick, of Coford, the national council for forest research, said at a conference in UCD last week that forests generally were not the complete answer to global warming "but an important part of a package of measures" to counter climate change. For example, in certain circumstances, a tree could absorb more than 9 kg of carbon dioxide, equal to that produced by a car travelling non-stop for 18,300 km. On a forest scale, this process is called sequestration.

Research was urgently needed to establish the carbon absorption potential of Irish forests, said Prof Jack Gardiner of UCD's forestry department. But preliminary estimates indicated it could be significantly higher than forests elsewhere and had the potential to take up 30 per cent of surplus greenhouse gas emissions.

However, according to Prof Ted Farrell of UCD's department of environmental resource management, peatland sites may release such significant amounts of carbon dioxide that their ability to sequester carbon and so offset fossil fuel combustion emissions remained uncertain.

With so many countries overshooting their Kyoto targets a global carbon emissions trading market was inevitable, said Prof Frank Convery, of UCD's Environmental Institute. This was the only way the agreement could be implemented. Every developed country was facing big increases in costs and carbon credits would be traded under a quota regime, possibly at between $5 and $10 a tonne of carbon dioxide. This would represent an important mechanism for those developing forests, he said.

Prof Convery said he would be surprised if major Irish industries such as the ESB, Aughinish Alumina, CRH and the State oil refining company in Co Cork were not looking at trading options. They would most likely also be looking at opportunities in developing countries under the protocol's "clean development mechanism", where participation in a low-emissions project would yield carbon credits.

Kyoto binds the State to a nonnegotiable 13 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emissions above 1990 levels up to 2012, and this could not be renegotiated, noted Mr Donal Enright, head of the Department of the Environment's air/climate section.

There would be substantial compliance measures though it remained to be seen if there would be financial penalties. The Government's greenhouse gas abatement strategy may be published within a month, he said.

The use of timber in construction was a very positive way of locking up carbon for a long time, said Dr Peter Bonfield of the UK Centre for Timber Technology & Construction. However, to be able to compete with the Nordic countries, the British and Irish timber industries had to improve quality and add value to products, he said.

Carbon was only one element to be considered under environmental impact evaluation of construction. It had been very difficult to assess the impact of buildings but it was now possible to "select materials and design a building on the basis of quantifiable environment impact". Using "life cycle assessment" a useful model was available, and he said timber came out particularly well compared to other materials.