MEP: EU needs new mindset to end deforestation 

Hungarian MEP Péter Olajos (EPP-ED) is a member of the European Parliament's environment, public health and food safety committee.

To read a shortened version of this interview, please click here.

You are drafting a parlamentary motion for a resolution on addressing deforestation and forest degradation to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. Why is the European Parliament developing a position on the issue?

There are two rapporteurs responsible for the motion: Magor Imre Csibi and myself. The reason we started this was because every year, thirteen million hectares of forest will disappear, which is equal to the territory of Greece. This deforestation is responsible for 20% of the CO2 emissions on Earth. It is therefore extremely important to stop this process and try to reforest the Earth.

There have already been some attempts to stop deforestation, but without success. Europe is of course a key player, because our imports play an absolutely crucial role in the process and we have a huge responsibility.

This is very much linked with biodiversity loss. We just had a big discussion on this at the Parliament [on 11 February] with [EU Environment Commissioner] Stavros Dimas and many others. The conclusion was that the target to stop biodiversity loss by 2010 is unrealistic, so it seems we won't succeed in reaching this goal.

The huge scale of deforestation and biodiversity loss together show that our present policy is not enough and we have to introduce new political and judicial tools to stop these processes and change the direction.

What kind of measures are you proposing?

We have some amendments and a general line on how we should improve the present situation.

First of all, we want to underline the importance of not focusing only on rainforests. All the European documents previously concentrated on the huge rainforests, in Africa, in South America, etc., but as MEPs from Eastern Europe, Magor Csibi from Bulgaria and myself from Hungary, we also have a special experience. 

In this region, in the Carpathian basin, in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, there is massive deforestation. This part of Europe is extremely important, because biodiversity is much higher than in Western Europe, due to the Communist time and relatively low economic development.

Therefore, it is crucial to keep biodiversity and forests, because otherwise it will be the same situation as we see here in Belgium and other Western European countries, where natural forests have practically disappeared.

Of course, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auctioning revenues are extremely important. The issue was touched upon in the ETS and effort sharing parts of the climate package very theoretically, and how we should use the revenues for deforestation was not discussed in detail. So we want to work on it.

Are you suggesting earmarking a certain percentage for tackling deforestation?

Yes, I guess that would be wise, because otherwise the governments can spend the money to other purposes, which is also important, but if we want stop deforestation, we need to earmark some money.

Do you have any suggestions at the moment of what the percentage could be?

Not yet. We only want to raise the issue. Of course, it depends on the Parliament. It's always very difficult to receive the support of all member states when we want to set up figures.

What other areas are you tackling?

The monitoring system is extremely important because nowadays it runs via satellites. This method is not very precise when we want to take into account emissions related to land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) in the ETS and effort sharing after 2013. That was part of the deal on the climate package.

If there is no international agreement from 2012, the European Union must create its own rules on how they take into account the LULUCF. 

One of the problems is that nowadays via satellite, they are not able to really measure how much deforestation is happening in a certain area. When you have to pay for deforestation because of the loss of a CO2 sink, you have to know how much CO2 you are talking about.

Via the present methods, it's not 100% sure. So we have to deal with this issue and how we should develop this monitoring system by 2012.

It's much more difficult than we politicians can influence. It's a very technical question, but we would like to see a process, because 2012 is very close. To establish a perfect methodology is not easy, so therefore it's important to start, because otherwise we will run out of time.

We also have to deal with green procurement, because sustainability criteria are important for timber and biomass products. We need to establish how we will implement these criteria for green procurement.

Also, if deforestation is a global political challenge, the EU must be a leading force in this field. Not only because we are one of the biggest importers in the trade, but also because we have to introduce best practice on how we fight against deforestation: methodology on forestry, local instruments, information technologies, etc.

Europe has a huge advantage in technology, so if we develop this technology first, we can be a driving force of the whole process. This is not just of moral importance, but a business advantage as well.

Are you also trying to formulate the EU's position for the Copenhagen negotiations when it comes to deforestation?

Absolutely. There is a process dealing with deforestation at UN level, so we have to be a part of this discussion as well. This parliamentary resolution will have to help the European Union influence the UN position. We would like to be a kind of driving force in this process, not following but going ahead.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, a criteria requiring for additionality perversely creates incentives to cut down rainforests, because only growing new ones is considered to bring a real reduction in greenhouse gases and thus allow for tradable carbon credits. Is this an issue the EU should seek to correct?

Sometimes the rules we try to apply go against the whole concept, so we have to be very careful when we observe the present situation. It's a fact that we have to deal very seriously with forests, but it seems that this wasn't successful in the past.

Our present situation is not good and sometimes counterproductive. We have to analyse what went wrong in the past and change the rulesino the direction which is really productive, and not give into extra pressure to cut down trees.

There are many programmes especially in Europe on reforestation. In the next decades, I hope that these programmes will develop for three reasons. First, the ETS will support reforestation by giving financing from the European Union, which gives impetus to the whole process.

Second, they will develop because of biomass production. The new renewable energy targets in many countries will put some extra pressure on the biomass industry, and they of course need new trees as biomass material.

The third aspect is that if the climate changes and the average temperature rises, the logical reaction is planting new forests. In my country, we plan to plant 750,000 hectares of forest, because the forest cools down the temperature and helps mitigate climate change. 

So I guess in many areas in Europe, especially the Southern and the middle zone, it will be a very useful tool to reforest some areas which are not good enough for agricultural production. The forests can keep up the soil and give some extra services, which underlines the importance of reforestation in Europe.

I guess in the next decade the forest industry will be a significantly growing industry in Europe.

You said that biomass production would give impetus to grow trees, but wouldn't it also work the other way round, speeding up deforestation?

That's where the importance of having a registry system comes in. It is ridiculous that you are very well informed about how an egg came to your table and where the chicken that laid it was, but all information about the origins of a hundred meters long tree is not available right now. 

You have to know where the trees used for biomass come from. If they were grown in a sustainable way, there is no problem.

There is currently a lot of debate in my country. There are some biomass installations and people and the civil society are complaining that the trees they use came from the original forests and not from energy forests.

It's of course not a good sign if it's true so we have to find a sustainable way and prove that all trees used as biomass came from energy forests, which were planted specifically to produce energy.

Forest credits are currently not part of the ETS. How do you see this policy evolving?

In Kyoto, forests are in. In the protocol, you can use the forest credits, but in the ETS there is no possibility. So therefore in the energy and climate package that we adopted just before Christmas, there is a paragraph in the ETS and effort-sharing documents that we have to adopt a rule on international level by 2012. If there is no international agreement, then the European Union will have to create one.

Moreover, from 2013 when the new ETS and effort-sharing system start, we have to involve forests as a CO2 sink or as part of this CO2 trading system. There is no real wording how it should be done. I don't know if it will be a credit or not, but we will have to take into account forests. That's all that is in the text.

A forestry specialist and UK government special adviser, Barry Gardiner, recently suggested that the UN climate agreement to be negotiated in Copenhagen in December should include 'turbocharging' of forestry assets on the grounds that a tonne of rainforest carbon is worth up to four times more than a tonne from another source. What is your opinion on this kind of approach?

I was surprised when MEP Chris Davis, Parliament's rapporteur on carbon capture and storage (CCS), asked for double credits for the technology, because we have to develop the industry, but they don't want to involve forestry.

I said forests are a five-hundred-million-year old CCS technology. It's improved and working. It gives us a lot of extra services, so why are we not involving forestry and wanting to give double credits for CCS projects? 

So there are a lot of problems in the way we're thinking nowadays about this system. If you really want to make a paradigm change and fulfil those criteria scientists say are necessary to stop climate change, then we have to work much harder on changing the rules.

I absolutely believe that we have to give double or even triple credits for forests, because the present way we handle them is just not enough.

In the end, it will be a political decision. I will no doubt argue that we will maybe triple credits, but I have doubts about how much we can achieve. We have to change our mindset, because the present approach is like so: give CCS projects double credit, but don't take into account forests. That's the present level of our understanding of the problem.