The
paper industry and the "business of climate change"
For many years, the pulp and paper industry
has been trying to paint itself green. No challenge is too big,
it seems, for one of the most polluting industries on the planet.
Although paper production is a major consumer of energy and a
major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, the latest challenge
for the industry is to go "carbon neutral". While reducing
greenhouse gas emissions may sound like something that we all
welcome, this industry-dominated discussion sidesteps the fact
that the pulp and paper industry is expanding rapidly, especially
in the global South. It also ignores the issue of massive overconsumption
of paper in the North. The best way of reducing the impact of
the pulp and paper industry is by reducing the amount of paper
produced. But of course the paper industry isn't interested in
talking about this.
In October 2007, the Forest Products
Association of Canada (FPAC) announced that by 2015 it would become
Canada's first "carbon-neutral" industry. The announcement
came during a conference at a luxury five-star hotel in the centre
of Ottawa. Featuring key note speeches from Keith Trent of Duke
Energy and Clive Mather, CEO of Shell Canada, the conference was
titled, appropriately enough, "The Business of Climate Change
Conference".
FPAC has entered into a partnership
with WWF to "help guide the initiative". FPAC claims
to have already reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 44 per
cent between 1990 and 2004. But this figure of 44 per cent reduction
in emissions is a fraud. It excludes so-called "indirect
emissions" - emissions produced in generating the electricity
which the industry uses.
A 2005 report includes both direct and
indirect emissions and concludes that the forest sector's greenhouse
gas emissions in 2002 were the same as they were in 1980. The
report, produced by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers,
notes that the forest sector is the "largest single industrial
energy user in Canada and has significant GHG [greenhouse gas]
emissions".
Another more recent report produces
data indicating that the situation may be even worse. This report
was commissioned by the FPAC, giving the industry little excuse
to ignore it. Written by the National Council for Air and Stream
Improvement (NCASI), the report compares emissions in 1990 with
those in 2005. The report calculates direct emissions from manufacturing,
"indirect" emissions from electricity generation, transport
emissions and methane produced from forest products in landfills.
In 2005, according to NCASI, the forest industry was responsible
for a total of 53.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent,
compared to 49.7 million tonnes in 1990 – an increase of 7.2 per
cent.
But the NCASI report doesn't stop there.
It introduces some creative accounting in the form of "sequestration"
and "avoided emissions", giving the impression that
things are not as bad as they appear and in any case may soon
get better. "Available data demonstrate that GHG emissions
along the forest products industry value chain are largely offset
by sequestration accomplished in forest products," writes
NCASI. Methane emissions from rotting paper and other forest products
in landfills are the largest single source of greenhouse gases
from the Canadian forest industry, accounting for about 46 per
cent of the industry's greenhouse gas emissions in 2005. NCASI
reassuringly explains that, "landfill methane emissions attributable
to Canadian forest products are more than offset by net storage
of carbon in forest products deposited in landfills." Some
forest products in landfill sites rot quickly and release methane,
others rot more slowly, releasing methane more slowly. This, according
to NCASI is "sequestration".
"Avoided emissions", meanwhile,
are changes that the industry could make, such as producing more
recycled paper or using combined heat and power generation. The
fact that the industry could also avoid emissions by producing
less paper isn't mentioned in NCASI's report. Instead, NCASI anticipates
an increase in consumption of forest products.
In September 2007, the Confederation
of European Paper Industries (CEPI) published a Carbon Footprint
Framework. CEPI does not make any grand claims about the industry
becoming "carbon neutral". Instead, the Carbon Footprint
Framework presents a series of arguments that companies can use
to convince consumers that their product is "carbon neutral".
Not surprisingly, CEPI's arguments are similar to those of its
Canadian counterpart. For example, CEPI proposes that the industry
should argue that carbon is sequestrated in both forests and in
paper products: "Use the statement that Sustainable Forest
Management (SFM) ensures that carbon stocks in forests stay stable
or even improve over time and build on this statement."
Part of the reason that paper consumption
is increasing is because paper companies are constantly coming
up with new uses for paper and promoting ways of using more paper.
When these paper products end up in landfills, they rot and produce
methane. Rather than attempting to greenwash its activities with
spurious arguments about carbon sequestration, the pulp and paper
industry should stop producing rubbish.
By Chris Lang. http://chrislang.org
