Tropical nations hope Bali meeting can lead to incentives for retaining trees

As 12,000 people gathered in Bali this week to begin framing a global response to Earth's warming climate, efforts to close a deal that would slow destruction of tropical forests appear to be the best prospect for a concrete achievement from the historic assemblage.
But the deforestation issue is also Exhibit A for the disputes that have made climate negotiations lengthy and divisive despite widening agreement that global warming is real and largely man-made. While scientific dispute over what causes global warming has ended, the debate over how to address it has just begun.
Deforestation is one of the biggest drivers of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Each year, tropical forests covering an area at least equal to the size of New York state are destroyed; the carbon dioxide that those trees would have absorbed amounts to 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, aboSplit between developing, wealthy nationsThe bargain is being championed by a dozen of the world's developing countries at the conference, whose ultimate goal is to map out a two-year path aimed at forging a global system for imposing and enforcing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
But the hoped-for compromise -- which would give financial rewards to poor nations that slow or halt the destruction of their forests -- could still founder amid divisions over who bears how much responsibility for slowing climate change -- and who should pay for it.
Developing countries that profit from logging or expanded farming and construction are seeking incentives and assistance for preserving their forests or slowing the rate of destruction. But many developed countries do not want to pay other nations for actions that are not taken, and they worry that it would be hard to measure the amount of avoided deforestation.
"The problems tend to start when you get down to the small print," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty organization that oversees international climate negotiations.
Deforestation aside, much of the focus on the Indonesian island will be on the large print. "If things go wrong in Bali, I think we are in deep trouble," said de Boer.
Planning beyond KyotoThe goal is to come up with climate accords that would take effect after the expiration in 2012 of the Kyoto Protocol, which was negotiated a decade ago. Under that treaty, a cap-and-trade system for limiting and creating a market for emissions is in effect in Europe and has become a multibillion-dollar-a-year business.
"It will be a process to get to a mandate to get a protocol," said Dirk Forrister, a managing director of Natsource LLC, a firm that invests in projects that produce marketable credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But government officials are also trying to leave Bali with some concrete achievements, and preserving the world's forests ranks as one of the most likely prospects.
"It's the area of climate-change negotiations that offers the most promise of cooperation between developing and developed countries, which is why it's so attractive to people on both sides," said Duncan Marsh, director of international climate policy for the Natureut the same as total U.S. emissions.

Scientists ‘must understand climate changes’

Rawalpindi, Carbon dioxide is one of the main contributors to overall climate changes. Everybody has to play its role and agriculture scientists must be ready now and try to understand the importance of climate changes, said Dr. Riaz Hussain Qureshi, Advisor Quality Control Higher Education Commission (HEC). He stated this while addressing the concluding session of two-day International workshop on ‘Carbon and Water Exchanges in Plants under Changing Climate Conditions’ here at Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (AAUR). Dr. Qureshi said that communities living in various parts of country and the world-over were not fully aware of the consequences of the big role of climate changes in Agriculture. He was of the view that duty of Agriculture Scientists was to create awareness about the climate changes, adding that Pakistan was also a part of globe and changes taking place around the world could impact the country in the long run. “Pakistan’s temperature was going to rise in the years to come, there is a chance that the country might receive more rains, which accompanied by melting of glaciers would create serious problems in the country,” he said, “It is time that we set our cropping patterns according to new requirements,” he remarked, and warned that Pakistan was going to face water shortage. “We have many species of plants, which are growing successfully in deserts like Cholistan and that grow without any protection in very hot and dry conditions. We have to select such type of species, which can survive in these conditions and our planning should be for next 30 to 50 years,” he added. Earlier, in his welcome address Vice Chancellor AAUR, Dr. Khalid Mahmood Khan said, climatic change refers to green house emission and carbon dioxide is main one and we have to reduce it according to Kyoto Protocol. He said although Pakistan is low gases emitting country but still we need to arrest climate changes at this time. He said Pakistan Economy is based on one river Indus and our whole life depends on Indus river system. He further said that water sources are melting down to Indus and if the glaciers are reduce by a large amount or quantity than ultimately we will be felt out no water. So we have to take certain step at this time to overcome this problem, which Pakistan can be, face in future.