By Guest Columnist
Donna Harman
As talks continue in Copenhagen on a new international climate change agreement, and as work continues in Congress on our own country's greenhouse gas reduction plan, the forest products industry's approximately 1 million workers nationwide and more than 45,000 in Oregon wait to see what's in store for their futures. At stake is nothing less than their jobs and communities.
In any agreed-upon plan, several things are essential for both economic and environmental reasons: a fair and level international standard, sufficient domestic emission allowances to manufacturers to cover expected cost increases, flexibility in how to comply with regulations, and enough time to reach carbon emission goals. Without an international climate change agreement that provides a level global playing field, global carbon emissions will inevitably shift to countries with little or no carbon regulations, taking manufacturing jobs with them.
Forest products companies are top 10 manufacturing employers in 48 states and, with a national payroll of $54 billion, are often the lifeblood of rural regions where other good-paying, highly skilled jobs left long ago. Costly carbon-control regulations that render the industry globally uncompetitive and undermine these economic contributions will lead to job losses and reverberate across vulnerable rural communities for years to come.
Though some dismiss the idea that the harvesting and processing of trees could be considered "green jobs," a severe economic blow to the industry would also have severe environmental consequences.
Forests and the products made from them offset 10 percent of the nation's annual carbon emissions. Putting these offsets to work in a cap-and-trade program is essential to such a program's success. Paper and wood products companies' massive carbon-neutral, renewable energy generation -- 28.5 million megawatt hours annually -- is one of the cornerstones of the nation's renewable energy base. In fact, the industry generates more renewable energy than all the solar, wind and geothermal energy production in the nation combined.
It is the demand for renewable and recyclable paper, packaging and wood building products that provides the economic motivation for private forest owners, who control almost 60 percent of America's forests, to replant trees and keep their forests intact. In fact, there are more acres of forests in the U.S. today than there were 100 -- or even 20 -- years ago thanks to the forest products supply chain's commitment to sustainable forest management practices.
The wrong climate change policies could bring an end to all of these environmental benefits. The fact remains, however, that the industry's often-overlooked environmental contributions are all threatened if U.S.-based companies cannot thrive alongside international competitors with lower wages, lax environmental and safety regulations, and little or no carbon regulations.
Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can succeed only if they are supported by a robust economy that can fund their implementation, and if they are supported by the people whom they are intended to benefit. If international agreements and U.S. policies recognize forests' and forest product's contributions to greenhouse gas reductions, and allow manufacturers to remain competitive, then we can preserve the industry's economic and environmental benefits, and greenhouse gas reduction policies are more likely to succeed as well.