Probably the tallest eucalyptus tree in the world measures 99.6 meters from the moist earth to the highest branch. If he could put Big Ben in the shade, “Centurion” doesn’t look particularly outstanding in the Huon Valley. Because the surrounding trees in the south of the Tasmanian wilderness are huge.
The island state “under down under” stands for Australia on a small scale, but operates nature conservation on a large scale. Around 40 percent of the island – an area almost the size of Belgium – is protected, in more than 800 reserves and 19 national parks. The result is a remarkable climate balance: Tasmania reports negative greenhouse gas emissions – the island therefore removes more CO₂ from the atmosphere than it emits. But how does a federal state manage this in a country that, measured by its population, is considered one of the most climate-damaging in the world?
Mineral resources made Australia rich: coal is still the second largest export product. Across the country, more than 70 percent of energy is generated from fossil fuels that are harmful to the climate.
Tasmania, on the other hand, relied early on on its geographic location in the “Roaring Forties” to generate energy, the Thundering Forties, as the region between the 40th and 50th southern latitude is called because of the strong westerly winds and the unstable weather. In 1895, one of the world’s first hydroelectric power plants went into operation on the South Esk River in the north of the state. And in the 1970s, the state Hydro-Electric Commission dammed Lake Pedder. Huge forest areas and ancient cave systems were flooded. This sparked criticism around the world and started a green protest movement in Tasmania.
It’s quiet on Lake Pedder today. The 140 meter high gray dam wall at the end of a 90 kilometer dead end puts an abrupt end to the lake in the middle of the wilderness. All around, huge eucalyptus trees, so-called swamp gums, fight for the sunlight, here and there wombats gnaw undisturbed on the grass. The forest is now a nature reserve.
“What happened in Tasmania is not the result of conscious, careful, long-term planning. It just happened,” says Professor Brendan Mackey, a climate researcher at Griffith University in Queensland.
Hydropower now covers almost 100 percent of Tasmania’s energy needs, and by 2040 the state’s renewable energy sources are expected to generate 200 percent of current needs. The excess electricity is to flow to mainland Australia via an undersea cable. However, this is not enough for Tasmania’s net zero as long as petrol and diesel engines, for example, continue to emit carbon dioxide. This must be extracted from the atmosphere and stored in sinks. “Today, carbon capture and storage technologies are all the rage. It’s already there. It’s called a forest,” Mackey said.
He has been studying the development of Tasmania for many years. While the island state recorded twelve million tons of CO₂ emissions in 2005, they had fallen to minus ten megatons in 2018. What had happened: Tasmania had greatly reduced the deforestation of its forests, new seedlings sprouted from the formerly cleared areas of land. Growing forests extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it in their biomass.
“You could pay regions to reduce deforestation.”
If you cut down the forests, this increases the climate balance twice over: Not only does the earth lose important storage capacities, if the wood is burned, this is associated with correspondingly high greenhouse gas emissions. When Tasmania cut deforestation in half in 2015, it took stock of what stopping deforestation and reforestation had accomplished: “In previous years, the two canceled each other out. But now we suddenly had negative emissions,” Mackey said.
But how can the Tasmanian example be classified globally? Net-zero emissions can only be achieved by removing as many greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as you emit. So if you want to achieve the net zero anchored in the Paris climate agreement, you have to store any emissions that still occur in sinks; in nature these are mainly oceans, soil, wetlands and forests.
However, climate compensation such as planting trees can mask true greenhouse gas emissions. The definitions of such compensatory measures are vague, and the goals set by the individual countries in the Paris Agreement cannot always be compared directly, emphasizes climate expert Jürgen Giegrich from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg, who is involved in the development of international standards for climate protection. For example, while some climate protection programs focus exclusively on reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, others also include greenhouse gases such as methane. Then there is the question of responsibilities. “An industrialized country like Germany or the USA has to contribute differently to reducing global warming than a developing country,” says Giegrich.
While the climate debate in Europe essentially revolves around reduced emissions, Professor Mackey still attaches too little importance to greenhouse gas removal. “Europe has good clean energy policies, but forest policies are having a negative impact. We need consistent policy solutions around the world.” He advocates financial recognition of extracted greenhouse gases. “You could pay regions to reduce deforestation.” That could reduce the damage to the climate “and has great social value”.