Carbon offsetting

Alan Lee

What is Carbon offsetting ?

Reducing carbon emission has become a buzz-term in the press and ecological media, prominent on political agendas and on the forefront of every conscientious mind. Each of our everyday actions consume energy and produce carbon dioxide emissions, e.g. taking holiday flights, driving our cars, heating or cooling our homes. Carbon offsetting is a way of compensating for the emissions produced with an equivalent carbon dioxide saving. So under increasing pressure to reduce our carbon footprint, but also trying to partake in responsible travel where our eco-dollars go along way in developing countries, what do we do?

First of all, let us try to understand the basic concepts.

Why are tropical rainforests important?

Roughly speaking each acre of rainforest contains 100 tonnes of carbon. Each year, 50 million acres - an area the size of Britain - are cut down, emitting around 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Recent efforts at modelling Amazon deforestation and forest degradation (logging, fire, etc.) show that over the next 50 years, of the 120 gigatonnes of carbon stored in the Amazon is likely to be removed into the atmosphere.

Trees grow three times faster in the tropics than in temperate zones. Each tree in the tropics removes about 22 kilograms of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. However, there is little to no net global cooling from tree planting in temperate climates, where warming due to sunlight absorption by trees counteracts the global cooling effect of carbon sequestration. Reforestation of colder regions where long periods of snow cover, evergreen trees, and slow sequestration rates prevail could even result in global warming! However, deciduous trees also have the advantage of providing shade in the summer and sunlight in the winter; so these trees, when planted close to houses, can be utilized to help increase energy efficiency of these houses.

Benefits of tree-planting include low costs compared to many other mitigation options. The cost effectiveness of tropical reforestation is due not only to growth rate, but also to farmers from tropical developing countries who voluntarily plant and nurture tree species which can improve the productivity of their lands. As little as US$90 will plant 900 trees, enough to annually remove as much carbon dioxide as is annually generated by the fossil-fuel usage of an average United States resident.

So what does this mean for a typical trip to Peru?

There are now a range of carbon footprint calculators available online that can be used to calculate carbon dioxide emissions. A direct return flight from London, United Kingdom to Lima, Peru is about 20,000 km (11, 000 miles). Each passenger contributes around 2.3 tonnes of CO2 and the recommended cost to offset this is between £17 to £19.17. The amount varies depending on type of plane, passenger load, class of travel etc.

A direct return flight from New York to Lima Peru is 11,759 km. Each passenger contributes on average 1.5 tonnes of CO2, costing £9 to £12.81 to offset using the climatecare.org calculator.

Carbon offsetting through tree planting

Trees sequester carbon through photosynthesis, converting carbon dioxide and water into molecular dioxygen (O2) and plant organic matter, such as carbohydrates (e.g., cellulose). Hence, forests that grow in area or density and thus increase in organic biomass will reduce atmospheric CO2 levels. In their 2001 assessment, the IPCC estimated the potential of biological mitigation options (mainly tree planting) is on the order of 100 Gigatonnes of carbon by 2050, equivalent to about 10% to 20% of projected fossil fuel emissions during that period.

The PowerTree Carbon Company have worked out that in a project where they planted 200 acres with 300 trees per ha, the carbon offset over 100 years was 90 000 tonnes. All this offset from 60 000 trees. This means in theory you only have to plant 1 hard wood tree per visit in order to offset you carbon per visit from the US, although it would be better to plant 2 coming from the UK. In addition, one should contribute some time and or money in order to assure that your tree does survive the 100 years!

If you help plant a tree on your visit to your lodge, you will be helping not only offset your carbon, but be helping offset carbon being released due to destruction of the rainforests as well as that released from combustion engines.

* We are not just planting trees but recreating an ecosystem that will be naturally regenerating.
* It is in a reserved zone so has the good protection available in terms of conservation.
* The forest has a natural fire resistance when it reaches an age of about 15 years old.

Benefits

# Stores CO2 as forest ecosystem regrows
# Costs are low compared to many other mitigation options
# Restoration of indigenous ecosystem
# Increased habitat for wildlife
# Seasonal employment local people

So consider planting a tree on your next visit to Peru – it will help your conscience and the planet.