Can scientists help end the political deadlock on forests? - 29.01.2009

The IARU International Congress on Climate Change will present ways to end the present political debate regarding the role of forests in a changing climate.

 

Forests are one of the most pressing issues to solve in the political discussions in the run-up to a new global climate deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, December 2009. But politicians may look to the IARU International Scientific Congress on Climate in March for ways to solve the longstanding deadlock on the issue.

 

The discussion is about how countries should be rewarded for conserving existing forests or increasing the forested areas in their country. Even though the issue has been on the global climate agenda since the 1990s it is still one of the most problematic ones for negotiators to agree on. At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP14) in Poznan, Poland, the issue was once again postponed for later discussion.

 

The difficulties arise from the plethora of questions: How should countries be rewarded for conserving or raising forests? Should conservation of old forests with great biodiversity be rewarded higher than raising new ones? And what will happen if the forests are cut down again in 20 years? Not to mention the discussion of ownership to the forests and their resources including their capacity to soak up carbon dioxides).

 

The IARU Congress will particularly address these important questions in two sessions:

Session 25 – The Role of Forests in Climate Change Mitigation – will highlight the policy implications of research fi ndings related to the role of forests in themitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. This session will be chaired by Dr. Frances Seymour, Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

 

Session 38 takes another - but not less important - view at the world’s forests. Led by Niels Elers Koch, professor at Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen and Vice President of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), this session will look into the problems of adapting forests to a changing climate and how to maximize the potential positive effects of climate change on forests while minimizing the negative ones. Results of a global scientifi c assessment of the adaptation of forests and forest-dependent people to climate change will also be presented for the  first time.

“We aim to deliver signifi cant input to the ongoing political process. If this important issue is to be solved in Copenhagen, we need the best of our current scientific understanding to be a part of the solution”, says Niels Elers Koch.

 

 

The University of Copenhagen is organising the Scientific Congress on Climate Change in cooperation with the partners in the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU):

 

Australian National University

ETH Zürich

National University of Singapore

Peking University

University of California - Berkeley

University of Cambridge

University of Copenhagen

University of Oxford

The University of Tokyo

Yale University

 

Read more about the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change