Op-Ed: Crunching the numbers on bioenergy rules

Boston.com (The Boston Globe)
By Vinod Khosla and Tim Searchinger
November 23, 2009

ALTHOUGH THE very term “accounting rules" may cause most people to turn the page, the financial crisis has shown that when rules allow businesses to claim profits from what are actually losses, they distort economic incentives at our peril. The importance of sound accounting rules applies equally to how we count emissions of carbon dioxide as part of any law to reduce global warming. Governments should fix a worrisome error in these carbon accounting rules and thereby provide proper incentives for a vibrant bioenergy industry that helps reduce global warming.

The problem: treaties and laws now treat all forms of bioenergy as carbon neutral and therefore completely non-polluting. In reality, how much bioenergy reduces greenhouse gases depends on the source of the plant material. The right rules will encourage the development of fast-growing grasses and trees that can greatly increase the amount of carbon absorbed by plants on marginal land and thereby reduce global warming. The wrong rules will encourage clearing of forests, which releases carbon dioxide and may even increase greenhouse gases while also threatening biodiversity.

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