杏吧原创

THE gold standard is dead, long live the 鈥渃arbon standard鈥�. Carbon may be the
foundation for transactions of the future, but first researchers need to learn
how to track its fate as it pours from chimneys and moves in and out of soils
and forests across the globe.

杏吧原创s who attended climate negotiations in The Hague say this inability
to track carbon led politicians, rightly, to be wary of accepting US proposals
for the protocol. Matthias Jonas, a forests researcher at the Austria-based
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, said: 鈥淐ountries are
planning to trade in carbon credits that they cannot even measure.鈥�

Much of the problem concerns plans for using land to soak up carbon dioxide
from the air. Proponents of these 鈥渟ink鈥� projects want to fence off parts of the
biosphere for accounting under the protocol, while leaving other parts outside.
The US, for instance, wanted to account for 鈥渕anaged鈥� forests differently from
unmanaged forests.

鈥淲hat happens when farmers are thrown off land to make way for a sink and
then chop down another forest to grow their crops? Somebody has to account for
this,鈥� said Jonas. 鈥淣o country can claim credit for carbon sinks without
accounting for everything else that happens to carbon in its territory.鈥�

This is what many scientists believe must now be done鈥攆ull carbon
accounting across the planet. They believe it will unlock the benefits of carbon
trading and herald a new world in which carbon becomes a major international
currency.

You can already buy carbon credits on the Internet that guarantee that your
money has gone to plant a sink forest or erect a wind turbine in place of a
coal-fired power station.