On Wednesday, October 28th, the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) hosted a briefing on Capitol Hill, with Transatlantic Fellow Tim Searchinger and Jae Edmonds from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to present the findings of a new Science article "Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error."The article uncovered a potentially damaging flaw in the way carbon emissions from bioenergy are calculated under the Kyoto Protocol and in the carbon cap-and-trade bill currently debated in Congress.  Dr. Edmonds joined the discussion to elaborate on his deforestation study that was cited in the article and examine the implications for land use and land-use change from limiting the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

In his remarks, Tim Searchinger explained the error of the current greenhouse gas accounting system, which fundamentally treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral, regardless of the source of biomass and the actual net emissions resulting from both energy combustion and land-use change. This creates perverse incentives to step up the production of bioenergy, even if it involves large-scale conversion of productive land and extensive clearing of the world's forests, which are the most effective sources of carbon sequestration from the atmosphere. If the calculation error goes unfixed, the future increase in bioenergy use will put severe strains on the ability to contain global warming. In order to resolve this critical problem, Searchinger put forward a very simple solution - that all emissions should be counted as carbon, and both countries and companies that produce biofuels from sources that actually reduce GHG emissions should get credit for those cuts. 

Jae Edmonds maintained that when it comes to carbon accounting, if we want to achieve long-term stabilization goals for the purpose of limiting the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere, it is fundamentally important that we count all the carbon, everywhere in the world, from every source. Whether CO₂ is released in the atmosphere through fossil fuels or deforestation, this carbon is still taken out of its reservoir where it has been stored for hundreds of years. Edmonds argued that most of the world's fossil fuel and industrial carbon emissions today carry no value, explicit or implicit. When it comes to terrestrial or ecosystem emissions such as land-use change, there is not a single method in place that would associate them with carbon values. For climate change mitigation strategies to be effective, we need a regime in which both terrestrial carbon emissions and those from energy and industrial systems are valued equally - in other words, we need to put a price on carbon.

The briefing was followed by an animated Q&A session. The audience engaged with the panelists on a number of questions related to the environmental impact of biofuels: how to implement a balanced system in which land-use emissions would be regulated as energy-use emissions;  what are the key considerations for designing an accurate accounting framework for carbon emissions;  the provisions under the current Renewable Fuels Standard legislation concerning direct clearing of forests;  how to structure an inclusive climate change mitigation policy; water scarcity and the implications for higher crop yields.  The debate further emphasized the political difficulty and resistance that this error evokes, given the timing of pending legislation and the interests of many diverse stakeholders.

Click here for a video interview with Tim Searchinger