Quality Forest Carbon Standard

Excerpt from the tree plantation-climate protection relation from the book of Balázs Horváth about the issue:
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT and unsustainability

"The ecological footprint calculation assumes that 0.27 gha can absorb 1 tonne of carbon dioxide per year (Wackernagel - Kitzes, 2008). Since 1 tonne of CO₂ is produced by burning 272.73 kg C, 1 m² of 1 gha of forest accumulates 27.27 g of carbon per year. This seems a modest assumption when compared to the net ecosystem production (NOP) of temperate forests of 80-700 g C/m2/year (Kalapos, 2007). However, this NOP value does not include the carbon reducing effects of litter, forest fires, leaching (Kalapos, 2007), and exceptionally dry and hot summers. Moreover, we may not have that much forest available. According to the Global Footprint Network (Global Footprint Network, 2015), the average carbon footprint of Hungarians is 1.4 gha and the average forest product footprint is 0.4 gha, which together represent 1.8 gha of forest area per capita. Even if we assume that Hungarian forests are 2.6 times more productive than the average forest on Earth (Ewing et al, 2010,), there should still be 1.8/2.6=0.7 hectares of forest per capita, i.e. a total of 7 million hectares of forest in Hungary. However, instead of the required 75%, our forest cover was only 20.8% in 2013, and in the long term we would like to achieve only 27% [1], so we have nowhere near enough forests to sequester the carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere.

In this context, it is important to note that there are no forests left in Hungary, so it would be more appropriate to talk about tree plantations or "woodland" instead of "forest stress". The 85.5 % forest cover (Somogyi, 2003) has now given way to monotonous, species-poor tree plantations. Among these, only 7.5 percentage points are represented by what are euphemistically called 'semi-natural' vegetation, which are also plantations without age structure (of trees of the same age), but slightly older (Somogyi, 2003). Today, not a single hectare of real (ancient) forest, which has never been cut down, remains in Hungary (Bartha - Oroszi 2003). Forests have therefore disappeared, while the word has remained - with a changed meaning, since in common parlance forest is now understood as a plantation of trees. This is quite a problem for the botanist, who can no longer not only show or study it, but also find it difficult to explain what we are missing. And it's even worse for those of us who have lost the language to describe the ecological being that once covered the vast majority of the country's territory and on which our long-term global survival still depends. Nor should we forget that the former carbon dioxide concentration of our atmosphere has been maintained by the fact that our Earth's forests - of which there were twice as many as there are now until eight to ten thousand years ago (Rakonczai, 2008; Nentwig, 2005) - performed this carbon-sequestering function in the same way as they do today. If today we impose a new task on them, by requiring them to sequester carbon dioxide released by burning fossil carbon or by clearing new land, in addition to the emissions of natural communities, and if we reduce their total area by 14.5 million hectares a year (i.e. an area the size of Hungary and a half) [2], it is no wonder that the CO₂ content of the atmosphere is increasing. There are no areas of the Earth that are just waiting to absorb the excess carbon dioxide from burning our fossil fuels (and if they don't get it from us, they will be left without food). There are only areas that have already had full access to the amount they need and have little to do with the excess they have today. Forests naturally absorb in summer just as much CO₂ as they exhaled the previous winter, and may well not be able to sequester more than this, even at the assumed rate of 1 t/0.27 gha/year. If they do take up the extra amount, the dominance relationships between plant species in the community will change. Indeed, the growth, development and reproduction of C plants, which account for 96-97% of known plant species, are already being accelerated by the increased CO₂ in the air, and further increases in concentration are likely to have an even more intense stimulating effect in the future. This is by no means as positive a development as it may sound and as some stakeholders would like to see [31], because plant community species respond very differently to increased atmospheric nutrients and it is by no means certain that all species will experience a positive change. It is more likely that some species will increase in abundance while others will become scarce or extinct, reducing biodiversity (Ziska, 2008).

So the amount of CO₂ can be described by the amount of forest area that can absorb it in 1 year, but this does not mean that this forest area will actually absorb the amount we put into the atmosphere - or if it does, at the cost of compositional changes and loss of biodiversity. This in turn undermines the already fragile stability of our biosphere (Vida, 1996). In other words, even if we had forests with a carbon footprint, it would be far from sustainable for us.

If we do not think in terms of (primeval) forests but of growing tree plantations, the assumption of rapid carbon sequestration may be realistic. But only for as long as the growth continues, which for a poplar plantation is only about a decade and a half. After that, the trees are cut down and, whatever they are used for, their carbon content is released back into the atmosphere in a matter of seconds on a geological timescale. Sustainable carbon sequestration can only be achieved by sealing the felled trees from the air, preferably by burying them. In Hungary, 1 person per year contributes 5.5 tonnes of CO₂ to the atmosphere [4], which is the same as the world average but half the European average (MacKay, 2009). Therefore, in our country, a tree plantation area of about 3750 m2/person would be needed in the first place. (Again, this assumes a total of 3.75 million ha of plantations, i.e. 40% "afforestation", and we have seen that we do not wish to establish more than 27%.) Since 1 ha produces 10 tonnes of dry wood per year, and the approximate density of wood is 500 kg/m3 , we would need to provide for the permanent sinking of 75 m3 of wood every ten years. In a person's lifetime, we would accumulate between five and six hundred cubic metres per person, which would be well beyond our technical capabilities to remove permanently from the cycle (MacKay, 2009). MacKay is also probably right that while some people are making the costly effort to bring combustible carbon compounds up from the depths (and thereby making a considerable profit for themselves), others will not sink theirs into the depths in the form of wood, with even greater effort and cost (in order to save the common atmosphere). (This would be a 'comedy' rather than a tragedy for common grazings.) And without burial, there can be no carbon dioxide balance. So we end up in the same place as before: even if we had enough tree plantations to capture all the carbon dioxide we emit, it would not make us sustainable."