What we're doing wrong
Biofuel versus biohazard
5th January 2008
Up to 30 times more carbon dioxide is released by draining peat than is saved by using the biofuels grown on the cleared land
New research at England’s University of Leicester confirms the devastating side effect of draining peatlands for agriculture: massive emissions of carbon dioxide. The bogs act as natural carbon stores, preserving dead plants that sink to the bottom. But when the swamps are dried out, the peat starts to decompose – emitting as much as 2,400 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere over a 25-year period.
Peatlands, like this one in Scotland, hold massive stores of carbon worldwide - but burning them out for agriculture is posing a dangerous hazard to the climate
Although ignored in the Kyoto protocol, as much as 40 per cent of 1997 emissions came from fires on Indonesian peatland, mostly started by farmers clearing the land. Perversely, huge swaths of this land are used to grow palm oil trees for biofuels – even though about 30 times more carbon dioxide is released by draining peat than is saved by using clean energy.
Last month, delegates in Bali agreed that measures must be taken in the post-Kyoto treaty to preserve carbon stocks, including peatlands. At stake: About 155 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide still locked away in the peatlands of Southeast Asia alone – equivalent to the past five years of global fossil-fuel emissions.
Published in The Green Report in The Globe and Mail
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