THE Kyoto Protocol to halt climate change is based on a scientific fallacy. The protocol says that countries can help meet their targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases over the next decade by planting forests to soak up carbon dioxide. But the soil in these “Kyoto forests” will actually release more carbon than the growing trees absorb in the first ten years.
“Countries will be able to claim carbon credits for the forests. But that won’t reflect what is happening in the atmosphere,” says Riccardo Valentini of the University of Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy. Late last week in Valencia, Spain, he presented the first results…
