Study suggests peat CO2 credits more valuable

Sunanda Creagh, Reuters 6 Nov 09;

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesia-based study is showing carbon-rich tropical peat lands trap more greenhouse gases than first thought, driving up their potential value on the carbon market and strengthening the case for their protection.

Huge amounts of greenhouse gases are released when peat lands are logged or drained for agriculture, and even more when the dried bogs catch fire and release toxic haze into the air.

But while most scientists agree preserving peat is key to slowing global warming, a team of 11 of the world's best peat scientists have found it might be more important than first thought.

"We are finding that the emissions from peat are very, very large, much larger than people expected," said John Raison, chair of the 11-member Peat and Greenhouse Gases Group, a joint project between the Indonesian and Australian governments formed late last year to develop a method to measure peat emissions.

"We are also finding that all of the assumptions to date have been too rough, far too rough for something that is to be sold on the (carbon) market."

Peat is created when layers of organic material break down over thousands of years and is particularly abundant in the Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian half of Borneo island, where huge tracts have been cleared for palm oil plantations.

Accurate calculations on carbon lost through deforestation or locked away by saving and replanting forests and peatlands is crucial to a fledgling U.N. forest carbon offset scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

REDD aims to reward developing nations for preserving and protecting forests via the use of an expanded carbon market. The United Nations hopes the scheme will become part of a broader climate pact from 2013 that might be agreed next month in Copenhagen or some time next year.

ESTIMATES

But Raison said there was still great uncertainty about how much carbon was stored in the peat lands, which would influence how much peat carbon credits should be worth.

Governments and companies in rich nations could buy the credits to help them meet mandatory emissions reduction targets.

"There have only ever been very gross estimates about that -- just guesses, really -- but the price is dictated by the certainty of the estimates. The more precise the estimate, the more valuable the product," he told Reuters in an interview.

To settle the debate, the team of peat experts will develop a method of estimating greenhouse gas emissions from tropical peat lands and create a way of forecasting more accurately how much greenhouse gases could be saved through REDD projects.

Initial research was presented to climate pact negotiators meeting in Barcelona this week and new field research would take place in Kalimantan later this year, said Raison.

About 5.5 percent of global carbon emissions are created by draining or burning peat, which stores twice as much carbon as all the trees in the world, according to new research presented at climate talks in Barcelona on Wednesday by one member of Raison's team, Hans Joosten.

Another study published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Geoscience found that draining peatland in Southeast Asia alone produced four times the greenhouse gases created by deforestation worldwide. This study found global deforestation created 12 percent of the world's total carbon emissions.

Raison said the team's research will inform the Copenhagen talks and Indonesia's development of its National Carbon Accounting System, a measurement and monitoring tool that helps a country set a carbon baseline and determine how much carbon is gained and lost.

However, Abdon Nabanan, secretary-general of the Indigenous People's Alliance of the Archipelago told an environmental forum on Wednesday that land titling problems -- not carbon accounting -- was the issue that would make or break REDD in Indonesia.

"Developed countries want to invest in mitigation efforts in Indonesia but I think they will fail because there is no investment certainty. There is conflict everywhere," he said.

(Editing by David Fogarty)