Kyoto Protocol and It's Flaws in Carbon Accounting

As found by some top international climate experts, there is a ‘critical, but fixable, error in the accounting method used to measure compliance with carbon limits.’ The flaw involves ‘the measurement of CO2 emissions from the use of bioenergy.’ If the said flaw remains uncorrected, the measures by which to meet the rightful goals towards greenhouse gas reduction would be miscalculated.

In the Kyoto Protocol, as well as in the European Union’s cap-and-trade law and the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the system of carbon accounting ‘does not factor CO2 released from tailpipes and smokestacks utilizing bioenergy nor does it count emissions resulting from land use changes when biomass is harvested or grown.’ All uses of bioenergy are thus ‘erroneously’ considered carbon neutral, ‘regardless of the source of the biomass, and could create strong economic incentives for large-scale land conversion as countries around the world tighten carbon caps.’

Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Jerry Melillo, along with a dozen co-authors of a paper published this week in the magazine Science, assert that ‘across-the-board exemption of CO2 emissions from bioenergy is improper in greenhouse gas regulations if emissions due to land-use changes are also not included. The potential of bioenergy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions inherently depends on the source of the biomass and its net land-use effects. When forests or other plants are harvested for bioenergy, the resulting carbon release must be counted either as land-use emissions or energy emissions. If this is not done, the use of bioenergy will contribute to our greenhouse gas problem rather than help to solve it.”