Opinion by Mathew Carr
Aug 7, 2025 — It sounds easy.
Replace timber sales with carbon credit revenue to save the forests.
Make the trees more valuable in place …than they are chopped down.
In reality, as with replacing fossil fuels, it’s very difficult to do so …as this just-published UNFCCC document shows:
The document is about how to address the “non permanence” of saved forests….and a proposed “draft standard”.
The tree industry’s submission seems to lack the urgency attached to the need for all people on earth to save the Amazon and all other carbon sinks.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not patronising Brazil.
I’ve argued for decades that forested countries deserve to be richly rewarded for saving their ability to process human (and non human) emissions.
That’s especially true because the countries most responsible for climate change have already chopped down most of their forests.
Given the terrible state of these negotiations, I would suggest multiple additional meetings between forest nations and the G20 over the next two months….to ensure a deal in November at the UNFCCC talks.
It seems rich countries still want to dominate the climate solutions after creating the climate crisis.
That’s a huge conflict of interest. Unless forest protection is incentivised most …. the market rules will encourage a worsening of the climate crisis.
Forest carbon credits must be valued more highly in the markets than direct air capture IMO…somehow.
The carbon capture industry is gaslighting the whole world by arguing forests offer non permanent emission cuts.
Permanent forests are the best climate action we have and SHOULD be rewarded as such.
More forests mean less need for technology-based carbon capture. That’s a huge saving.
Some disturbing key comments from the doc:
Most of the [draft standard’s] substantive provisions are unrealistic and unfeasible for land-based removals.
It conveys the impression that it was designed with a focus on technological removals. (ie carbon capture?)
The time provided to send inputs for this and other standards under Article 6.4 has been too short in comparison with the complexity of the matters.
While there has been a substantive delay in A6.4 regulations since the Paris Agreement, we believe that the discussion of such complex matters at the technical level now should not be undermined by excessively short timelines. (6.4 is the new Paris carbon market)
It is unrealistic to assume that nature-based projects will be feasible if they need to carry an “eternal” monitoring/reversal liability while most, if not all, revenues are limited to the initial years.
We understand that the key point is the adoption of science-based non-permanence criteria, considering the temperature impact over time even if at partial levels.
“About half of a CO2 pulse to the atmosphere is removed over a time scale of 30 years; a further 30% is removed within a few centuries; and the remaining 20% will typically stay in the atmosphere for many thousands of years.”
The industry suggests hybrid system to overcome some of the challenges — worth reading.
(more to come)
