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The Risks Of Pine Carbon Farms – Expert Reaction
Forests planted for carbon credits are permanently locking up NZ’s landscapes, and could land us with more carbon costs, says the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.
The new report, Alt-F Reset: Examining the drivers of forestry in New Zealand, says that Radiata pine is really the only economical tree for carbon farming. However, it could leave the Crown with future carbon liabilities if they’re damaged by pests, disease, fire or extreme weather events.
The Science Media Centre asked experts to comment.
Dr Nathanael Melia, Senior research fellow, New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington; and Founding Director of Climate Prescience, comments:
“The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, is uniquely qualified to provide impartial strategic guidance on New Zealand Forests. We should be deeply grateful for this as climate virtue signalling and perverse carbon incentives threaten to radically change our classic rural landscapes in a widespread and visually jarring fashion.
“My takeaway from the PCE’s advice (condensed into a crude binary statement) is no to carbon forestry. This report is a savvily timed Uno Reverse card as the day before publication, Eloise Gibson at RNZ reported that mass carbon forestry is exactly the climate target get-out-of-jail-free-card this government plans to go all in on.
“I’m a climate scientist who has worked around NZ forestry and climate issues for a while now, and I wholeheartedly support the PCE’s scepticism about carbon forestry. I foresee that carbon forestry will become what mortgage-backed securities were to the global financial crisis, i.e., it will do no real-world good, inflate the carbon credit bubble, make very few very rich, derail climate mitigation, and cause systemic turmoil.
“The best feature of the PCE’s Alt-F Reset report is the “Alt-F” play on Alternative Forestry, and the Alt+F4 Windows kill command. This wordplay (pleasingly common on PCE reports) basically tells you all you need to know, which I’ve decoded as ‘kill carbon forestry’. On a more serious note, PCE’s 15 recommendations (while numerous) are all pragmatic and overdue for action by New Zealand’s various policy authorities. Unfortunately in this case, the PCE’s recommendations are, officially speaking, a nice to have and not government policy, and MPI and MfE are at the behest of their ministerial overlords of the day.
“Looking at the organisations contracted for the Alt-F report, one finds it littered with forestry apologists with obvious conflicts of interest, though given these niche topics, this is somewhat unavoidable in New Zealand. Otherwise, to say the report is extensive is an understatement; it needlessly explores every possible avenue and, in a literature review style, also says little of actionable substance. Thankfully, Simon Upton is probably the sharpest guy I’ve ever met and has previously commissioned heaps of work in this space. I suspect his perceptive recommendations would have been largely the same had you asked him to write them down with a fountain pen over high tea a year ago.
“The headline for me is the PCE’s recommendation to reform the NZ ETS to phase out forestry offsets for fossil fuel emissions and instead align forestry to offset biogenic methane emissions. This is the solution that Prof. Dave Frame and I proposed in a previous investigation with PCE, and it’s great to see this bold affront to the status quo still front and centre.”
Conflict of interest statement: No Conflicts of Interest
Emeritus Professor David Norton, Te Kura Ngahere/School of Forestry, University of Canterbury, comments:
“This report sets out to examine the options for large-scale afforestation in New Zealand, the factors that have driven the current focus on radiata pine as the preferred species for this, and what alternative types of forest could be better placed to deliver carbon, biodiversity and land use objectives. The review is very comprehensive and well informed, and the report concludes with 15 recommendations on both the opportunities for large-scale afforestation and managing the risks associated with this.
“The report is incredibly timely as New Zealand and the World is facing unprecedented climate change. The 1.5 degrees atmospheric warming target has been exceeded, and increasingly severe weather events are becoming the new normal, with massive impacts on both environment and society.
“While reducing greenhouse gas emissions is critical if we are to have any hope of a sustainable future, drawing down or sequestering the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere is also important. For many this has been seen as a more tractable option as the perceived costs and impacts on our lifestyles are seen as less than those associated with actively reducing emissions. In New Zealand, The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has seen CO2 emissions in New Zealand being offset by carbon sequestration primarily by fast growing radiata pine (often called carbon farming). This PCE report rightly questions these assumptions and the way the ETS operates.
“Unlike native forests, permanent exotic tree plantings do nothing for native biodiversity, will become major reservoirs for exotic plant, fungal and animal pests, and can facilitate wildfire. Mature radiata pine plantings are also more prone to damage from severe storm events than native forests, leading to downstream effects especially as climate change induced storms intensify. This report objectively and comprehensively questions the very basis of the carbon farming approach, and especially the liabilities this will impose on future generations. But as the report notes, under current policy settings, native forests cannot compete with radiata pine on cost despite the multiple values they provide – so one of their key recommendations is that we need to change the policy settings to recognise these liabilities.
“While the PCE report doesn’t say this explicitly, carbon farming is essentially treating the climate emergency as just another opportunity to make money while ignoring future financial and environmental liabilities, which is in my view morally corrupt. Sadly, the recent proposal by Government to use public conservation land for even more carbon farming reinforces this approach.
“Permanent native forests, although much slower growing than exotic radiata pine, can provide a massive range of environmental and social benefits for New Zealand. What we require in New Zealand are policy settings that make native afforestation an affordable option to build landscape resilience against future storm events, to help conserve our native biodiversity and to provide the social and cultural values that both Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders want. They should not be a substitute for genuine emissions reductions, we need these urgently, but native afforestation can be funded in part through the ability to sequester atmospheric CO2.”
Conflict of interest statement: “I have written widely about the risks carbon farming presents and the opportunities that native afforestation provides. I am the strategic science advisor to Pure Advantage who have been promoting Recloaking Papatūānuku as the best option for NZ to build landscape resilience in the face of climate change.”
Dr Nicola Day, Senior Lecturer in Plant Biology, Victoria University of Wellington, comments:
“I have been out in the field this weekend setting up a forest monitoring plot in a beautiful kahikatea stand, so forest structure and native diversity is front-of-mind for me!
“Radiata pine plantations for timber are important for the economic and social wellbeing in many areas of the country. However, as stated in this report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, planting radiata pine forests to increase carbon capture is an idea that may help in the short-term but will likely lead to longer-term problems.
“Obvious concerns include the well-documented spread of invasive wilding conifers across the landscape, which also increases fire risk. I am also concerned that many well-intentioned exotic alternatives for carbon farming suggested as alternatives to radiata pine in the report are also highly flammable species, such as eucalypts and redwoods.
“The report highlights the massive research investment that has been made in maximising growth of plantation pine forests, which has been to the detriment of research in afforestation with native species. Establishing native-dominated forests in suitable locations would benefit native biodiversity that would likely persist for longer than exotic pine forests, because native trees are much longer lived than pine, in general.
“Determining the appropriate locations for afforestation involves no small amount of work and meaningful consultation. Focussing on afforestation in areas of “low productivity” could put areas with high conservation values at risk and potentially alter biodiversity. A holistic view of species and locations for afforestation that goes beyond a short-term carbon fix is urgently needed.
“Globally, the majority of carbon not in the oceans is in the soil, and this is not currently considered in the ETS. The type of vegetation can affect soil carbon, but this is poorly understood.”
Conflict of interest statement: “I currently supervise a PhD student and collaborate on an MBIE grant based at Scion.”
Tim Payn, Principal Scientist, Scion, comments:
“The report provides thorough and comprehensive insight into the role planted forests play in New Zealand. Its release is timely, given New Zealand forestry is facing many challenges and opportunities.
“Forests, whether publicly or privately owned, should be considered an important national strategic asset. They remain a critical part of our climate change response and they are going to have to look different in the future, to continue playing a role in decarbonising a growing economy.
“The government’s role in developing and maintaining forests is very important, as the history section of the report shows. New Zealand would benefit from a forest policy to guide future management of these assets. Recommendation 14 in the report, which suggests a cross-party agreement on ‘broad strokes of forest policy’, is therefore critical as forestry is a long-term enterprise.
“Climate challenges such as more intense storms and severe droughts mean we must consider new forestry systems that can withstand these risks. The report clearly outlines opportunities, for example transition forests, alternative species, standing forests for ecosystem services and the need to shift away from clear-fell harvesting systems in some areas.
“However, there are knowledge gaps around what new and different forest systems we may need. We need to accelerate research around these so we can adapt effectively.
“The challenges of establishing native forests at scale are well outlined in the report, but further thought should be given to funding mechanisms and valuation of ecosystem services related to native and exotic forests.”
Conflict of interest statement: “I have undertaken a wide variety of scientific projects across areas covered by the report. I reviewed an early draft of the report. I am involved in various forestry industry forums and am currently a member of the Forest Sector Resource and Environment Committee, and a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Forestry."
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