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Energy Systems, Environment and Development: Thomas J. Goreau ATAS Bulletin, Centre for Science and Technology for Development Advanced Technology Assessment System, Issue 6 1991 United Nations, New York. 1991 Pages 461-464 A Call for a Tropical Research Action Plan for Sustainable Third World Development and a Stable Global Environment This paper discusses the critical role of tropical development in maintaining a stable balance of atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate, and proposes a research program which could both stimulate sustainable tropical economic development and stabilize global climate change. Introduction Sources and Sinks of Climatically Active Gasses A minimum requirement for halting runaway global climate change is stabilization of the concentrations of climatically active gasses in the atmosphere, although the intrinsically long response times of the climate system (thousands of years) mean that this will take a long time to take effect. The climatically active gasses divide into three categories: those that are rapidly consumed by chemical and physical processes in the lower atmosphere, those that are consumed by chemical and physical processes in the upper atmosphere, and· those that are consumed by biological processes. The first category includes ozone, nitric oxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons. Because they typically are removed within a few days, they amount to regional pollution problems, not global ones. Their control involves technological measures to reduce combustion sources, and the response to source reductions is rapid. Local legislation and compensation between a limited number of countries are viable approaches to their control. The second category includes gasses such as nitrous oxide, methane and halocarbons, which are removed from the atmosphere only by processes taking place above the ozone layer. It takes decades to centuries before they are mixed throughout the lower atmosphere and vertically above the ozone layer, so they constitute a global climatic problem. They can be effectively controlled only by reducing sources, but the response to such a reduction may lag decades to centuries behind decreased emissions. Global treaties are needed to tackle their control. While this strategy is now being attempted for the halocarbons, the other two, methane and nitrous oxide, have large natural biological sources as well as human ones (from combustion and land management practices). At the present lime, lack of adequate quantification of their natural sources and of the impact of land management practices on emissions, especially in the tropics, prevents development of any effective strategy for their reduction. The third category contains a single gas, carbon dioxide. Both nitrous oxide and methane have small microbiological sinks, but these are dwarfed by ultraviolet photolysis in the upper atmosphere, while carbon dioxide is unique among the climatically active gasses in being stable in the atmosphere and having no non-biological removal mechanism. Carbon dioxide is the very stuff of life, the raw material for all organic matter and for the limestone skeletons of lower marine organisms. Consequently there are two alternative mechanisms to reduce its level: supply-side measures, such as emissions reductions from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, and demand-side measures, such as increasing the rate of photosynthesis and calcification so as to increase the amounts of carbon stored as biomass, soil organic matter and sedimentary limestone and organic matter. CO2 is the major human-influenced greenhouse gas, and more efficient recycling of carbon dioxide through biotic pathways probably would also reduce natural biological emissions of the next two largest, nitrous oxide and methane, whose microbiological production is symptomatic of inefficient carbon dioxide recycling. Control of carbon dioxide levels will require a global treaty and control effort to balance sources against sinks. The only well quantified source or sink is fossil fuel combustion, a tiny fraction of the biological sources and sinks. As a result, efforts to limit combustion sources alone can have only a trivial effect in limiting CO2 build-up and climate change unless efforts are also made to manage natural carbon dioxide sources and sinks in a way which increases removal of the gas. Of course, this does not argue in any way against energy efficiency increases, since the most effective way to get rid of CO2 is to not produce it. However even if we were 100 per cent efficient in energy use, climate change would only slow down to a trivial degree in the absence of demand-side measures, and globally enforced emissions reductions would preclude significant development of the poorer countries, which need to increase their energy use per capita. The trick to stabilize CO2 levels is to balance what goes in versus what comes out. Measures to Stabilize CO2 The pre-conditions for CO2 stabilization, therefore, are accurate measurements of all of the sources and sinks, and systematic efforts to increase CO2 removal to a level that counters the unbalanced human-induced sources. While some have proposed massive ocean fertilization to stimulate phytoplankton growth, it makes little sense to do so because marine organisms store very little carbon in biomass, because almost all of it rapidly decomposes and is returned as carbon dioxide, and because having a significant impact on atmospheric CO2 would necessitate turning large parts of the ocean basins anoxic. This would greatly increase methane releases to the atmosphere, would make the waters stink of hydrogen sulphide (the rotten egg smell of salt marshes and severely polluted estuaries and harbors), and would kill all of the economically valuable fish and shellfish in those waters. It makes far more sense to increase terrestrial productivity, because terrestrial biomass and soils have far larger carbon storage, because this could result in significant economic productivity of renewable products, and simultaneously protect our soil, water and genetic diversity resources. Efforts to quantify natural CO2 sources and sinks, and to increase carbon removal via reforestation, must be focused in the tropics, where these are largest in magnitude, have the greatest potential to stabilize the atmosphere and are the least well measured. Naturally, such programs will not be viable if local people have to cut down the trees and burn them in order that they may eat. Real financial resources must be invested so that jobs and sustainable economic products are generated: planting and maintaining trees must become more rewarding than their destruction. Such an effort calls for an integrated tropical research and action plan, whose goal is sustainable development in third world countries, without which no effort to stabilize atmospheric composition can be successful. Increased sustainable biological productivity leading to sustainable development is therefore more than merely desirable from the point of view of tropical peoples. It is the sine qua non for stabilizing global climate change. A Tropical Research Action Plan The proposed Tropical Research Action Plan (TRAP), which aims to trap carbon by recycling it through economically productive, renewable tropical biomass, would have three components:· Massive reforestation on degraded tropical soils. This means large scale employment, focused not only on restoring damaged and eroded hill slopes, but on watering and fertilizing the seedlings until they are viable (The Chinese say, "We learned the hard way, now we spend 30 per cent of our time planting trees and 70 per cent taking care of them."). Reforestation's viability is best proved by comparing the Floresta da Tijuca, the beautiful manmade tropical rain forest planted 150 years ago by 20 slaves in order to provide the drinking water catchments for Rio de Janeiro, to the barren or severely degraded hills around it, which were forested to their summits when the Portuguese arrived, but which never recovered after the trees were cleared for coffee plantations and the soil washed away. Sustained research efforts over several generations to identify and remediate the specific nutrient limitations in each major soil, vegetation and climatic type, to regenerate soil nutrients, to preserve plant genetic diversity, to plant and select the widest range of species and genetic varieties in each zone and to identify those varieties that are most productive for biomass and as sources of renewable economic products, such as fuels, fibres and biochemical raw materials. This would include genetic crossbreeding and selection, and sustained efforts to bring the most advanced tools of modern molecular biology to bear in developing strains of plants that are intensive factories for producing valuable chemicals. Examples include plants, which are sources of nutritious fruits known only locally, or trees that directly produce fuel hydrocarbons. This work would take many decades, and would require massive upgrading of the equipment, facilities and staff at tropical research institutions. Direct measurements of CO2 release to and consumption from the atmosphere, in each major natural- and human-influenced ecosystem, soil and climatic type (including forests, grasslands, swamps, agriculture and pastures), and quantification of changes in carbon stored in biomass, soils and sediments. This is necessary to verify the effectiveness of programs to remove and store carbon, to set targets and to reward performance. The requisite measurements cannot be obtained by remote sensing, but must be measured on the ground, year round. Implementing Sustainable Tropical Development The principle that "the polluter pays" should be extended to include all the long-term environmental effects of greenhouse gas production from fossil fuel combustion, without any economic discounting, so that everyone who benefits from fossil fuel energy pays the real costs for removing the carbon dioxide (and other waste products) that they generate. In other words, fuel burners should pay tree planters and researchers in sustainable development to solve the problems that they create. Doing so makes good sense from an environmental standpoint and also from an economic standpoint: it would be far cheaper than the economic costs of unrestrained climate change or the costs of punitive taxation, which raises the prices of fossil fuels in order to discourage consumption and generate discretionary revenues for politicians. The latter approach requires very high prices because energy use is highly inelastic, is a punitive approach that affects the poorest most, and is not targeted to specifically solve the environmental problems caused by fuel use. Tropical reforestation can potentially absorb the existing accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere only so long as there are degraded lands to replant. It can do so to an extent that depends on success in increasing productivity, based on research that has not yet been done on the required scale, and the potential of which cannot yet be determined. Ultimately, however, the world would run out of suitable land, and to this extent carbon dioxide stabilization is only an interim measure to bridge the gap until truly renewable energy sources can be developed that are not net CO2 producers. Probably the best step in this direction would be to tax fossil fuels and to invest in mass production of photovoltaic cells on a scale that would drive down their production costs to a level which makes them competitive with fossil fuel energy. While some are touting nuclear energy as the carbon dioxide-free fuel of the future, the costs are staggering, even if there were no wastes generated, no reactor de-commissioning costs, no accidents, and no terrorist individuals or Governments seeking to divert just a few kilograms from the thousands of tons of plutonium being shipped from breeder reactors to fuel reactors. Proponents of nuclear power often fail to mention that breeder reactor technology is being proposed only for developed countries, and that the unspoken assumption is that developing countries never develop. Such an approach would hardly seem aimed at global sustainable development or at environmental and political stability. Developing a tropical research and action plan to generate sustainable development and stabilize climate change will take generations of effort. It is very difficult to estimate its real costs because its success depends on research and development that remains to be tackled, and because serious estimates of the land, manpower and research needs of a suitably scaled program have yet to be made. A series of workshops to develop such a program and estimate costs is essential before the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, if the Conference is to be a significant step towards sustainable development and global environmental protection. A coherent plan to establish a mechanism to fund and co-ordinate pan-tropical reforestation and research requires an agency focused on this task. At present no funding agency anywhere in the world considers long-term research on tropical sustainable development a serious priority. Expansion of token and partial efforts will not solve the problem: a program specifically aimed at tropical sustainable development on a global scale is needed to harness the knowledge and energy of tropical scientists and farmers, who are currently paralyzed by lack of funds and unable to do the research and development work, which is their proper, and deeply desired task. The Urgency of Action It has long been asserted that global climate change would have its most serious impacts in polar regions, where temperature increases would be largest. This has resulted in many tropical countries taking the view that global climate change is not their problem. It is true that the developed countries of the North are responsible for the overwhelming bulk of the current atmospheric excess of climatically active gasses, but it is false to suggest that the tropics would be least affected. Tropical organisms live very close to their upper temperature limits, and so are far more threatened by very small temperature increases than those living in colder zones. In 1987 and 1989, unusually high and sustained open ocean temperatures above 30°C led to widespread mass bleaching of coral reefs. These temperatures, only a degree above normal, caused the reefs to cease growing for long intervals. While we cannot predict local weather patterns, and hence when and where such episodes will take place, it is becoming clear that unless global warming is halted, these episodes will become more frequent and more severe, and fisheries, tourism, protection of shorelines from hurricanes and the ability to adapt to rising sea levels will deteriorate or be destroyed in many tropical areas. In addition, the chemical composition of tropical soils makes them especially subject to rapid nutrient loss following deforestation, and particularly slow lo restore, when compared with soils from temperate regions. Tropical countries may therefore have the most to lose from unrestrained climate change, and the most to gain from research and restoration efforts aimed at stabilizing carbon dioxide and developing new pathways to sustainable development based on renewable products. The time for action is surely upon us. Any further delay will only make the required measures slower, more extensive and more expensive.
Bibliography Goreau, T. J. "Balancing Atmospheric Carbon," Ambio, V. 19, pp. 230-236 (1990) Goreau, T. J. "Coral Bleaching in Jamaica," Nature, V. 343: p. 417 (1990). Grantham, R. "Approaches to Correcting the Global Greenhouse Drift by Managing Tropical Ecosystems," TropicalEcology,V.30,2,pp.157174 (1989). Myers, N., and T. J. Goreau. "Tropical Forests and the Greenhouse Effect A Management Approach," Climatic Change (in press). Thomas J. Goreau is president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance and research scientist at the Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory, Jamaica. Previously, he was a Senior Scientific Officer at the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development. Research areas include stabilization of climate change, effects of Amazonian deforestation on atmospheric chemistry, ocean temperature and coral bleaching, coral reef ecology, and mariculture development. Educated in Jamaican schools, he holds degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, and Harvard University, all in the United States. |
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