Kyoto Treaty, Climate Bill: perverse incentives to clear forests for biofuels

Economist:

the widespread growth of biofuel crops is likely to cause a net global release of greenhouse gases during the first half of the century, as land is cleared and fertilisers are scattered liberally. In the right circumstances the CO2 account, they reckon, could move into profit by mid-century, but the nitrous oxide account never does.

Tim Searchinger’s Science paper, meanwhile, looks at the way the accounts are drawn up in the here and now. Dr Searchinger, who works at Princeton University, and his collaborators point out that the rules for assessing compliance with the Kyoto protocol (which are also included in the version of America’s climate bill that passed the House of Representatives) are biased in favour of biofuels because they fail to account for emissions from land cleared to grow such fuels. Combine that observation with Dr Melillo’s modelling and you have a recipe for some perverse incentives indeed.

Sadly, settled international standards on biofuels or on a trading system that includes their carbon-cutting benefits are probably a long way off. Two more items on the “too busy to do” list of the Copenhagen conference on climate change.

This hardly seems like a valid excuse.