Thanks Greg. I have been watching the language included in successive drafts during the week and the mention of sinks, especially balancing sources and sinks, is a positive change.
I'd also point out section 31, where the Ad Hoc Working Group is requested to elaborate "to include all categories of anthropogenic emissions or removals in their nationally determined contributions and, once a source, sink or activity is included, continue to include it". The significance there is that countries acting individually can designate sinks such as soil as solutions to balance emissions. One such initiative is the "4 pour 1000" announced by the French agriculture minister Stéphane Le Foll which advocates for increasing organic matter and soil carbon content by 0.4% per year especially in agricultural land, and makes the case for the food security benefits as well as for climate. This HuffPost article lays it out well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-rijsberman/is-food-security-breaking_b_8750512.html As the article notes, many individual countries were emphasizing agriculture in the conference, but the word "agriculture" and indeed "soil" do not appear in the final agreement, suggesting there was resistance to the global inclusion of soil carbon sinks. No matter. Countries are still empowered by the agreement to credit themselves with soil carbon sequestration, whether by agricultural techniques, biochar, or other methods. This is a central success of the conference which deserves wide notice. Brian On Saturday, December 12, 2015 at 6:36:52 PM UTC-5, Greg Rau wrote: > > http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf > > Of relevance to CDR: > "Article 4 > 1. In order to achieve the long-term temperature goal set out in Article > 2, Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon > as possible, recognizing that peaking will take longer for developing > country Parties, and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance > with best available science, so as to achieve a balance between > anthropogenic emissions by sources and *removals by sinks *of greenhouse > gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity, and in > the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty. > > Article 5 > 1. *Parties should take action to conserve and enhance, as appropriate, > sinks and reservoirs *of greenhouse gases as referred to in Article 4, > paragraph 1(d), of the Convention, including forests. > > Article 13 > …. > 7. Each Party shall regularly provide the following information: > (a) A national inventory report of anthropogenic emissions by sources *and > removals by sinks of greenhouse gases*, prepared using good practice > methodologies accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and > agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the > Parties to the Paris Agreement" > > GR - Unclear what "as appropriate" means. When would it be inappropriate > to conserve or enhance GHG sinks? Unclear why forests are specifically > called out since they are less than half of the global bio CO2 sink. Anyway > "sinks" seem to be on equal policy footing with sources in the management > of air GHG. One can only hope that commensurate policy and R&D support > for sink enhancement will follow. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
