Abstract
As noted in previous chapters, it is not easy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions – it is technically difficult and the public is willing to pay too little to do so. As a result, governments have looked to land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities as a means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering it in terrestrial carbon sinks. This chapter considers economic issues related to, among others, discounting of carbon, questions pertaining to additionality and leakage, transaction costs, the process of certifying carbon offset credits, governance, and corruption. Available data suggest that, compared to emissions reductions, LULUCF activities are a costly alternative for mitigating climate change, although forestry activities in some regions might constitute an exception. Carbon sequestration and its costs are examined over a number of forest rotations encompassing 240 years; costs and carbon uptake depend on tree species, growth rates, the post-harvest use of fiber, and the discount rate. As shown in this chapter, tree-planting activities can be used to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits under Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism, but the approach used to determine the CER differs from the actual carbon flux. Finally, although currently not permitted under Kyoto, activities that Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) are being promoted as eligible CER credits. This effort has gone even further, however, in the attempt to link the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Convention on Biological Conservation – the definition of REDD credits has been extended to include sustainable management of forests, forest conservation and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks, collectively known as REDD+.
On the one hand is the global scientific consensus, and on the other – given equal weight – are the crackpot theories of industry-financed deniers. – Al Gore, Our Choice, p. 363.
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Notes
- 1.
This is an interesting statement as the agreement reached at Marrakech implicitly assumes that the Kyoto process will be extended in the future, because, at the time, there existed no future commitment periods.
- 2.
Recall that the U.S. was no longer an active participant in the Kyoto process by the time of COP7, which was held at the end of 2001.
- 3.
Tree growth could potentially be much higher than indicated in the text. For example, Clark Binkley (pers. comm., July 12, 2011) indicates that plantation forests in Chile used to produce biomass for energy can achieve growth rates of 100 m3/ha/year, or uptake of more than 70 tCO2/ha/year! The rotation age is only 3 years, so this is more like an agricultural crop.
- 4.
Asante et al. (2011) investigate soil carbon in forestry in greater detail. In their case, soil carbon declines over time, suggesting that the forest was in its original state so that soil carbon was above it long-term equilibrium for a managed forest.
- 5.
All of the conversions in Table 9.3 are approximate and, in some cases, alternative values are used (as might be the case elsewhere in this book). For example, the energy released by burning various fuels will be different depending on the fuel and its quality (e.g., bituminous versus lignite coal), and on whether a low heating value (LHV) or high heating value (HHV) is employed. One place where energy and some other conversions are found is the website of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (viewed March 21, 2010): http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html. Data on conversions between bone dry biomass and volume of timber are found at (viewed March 21, 2010) http://www.globalwood.org/ tech/tech_wood_weights.htm, while remaining conversion data are provided in Niquidet et al. (2012).
- 6.
The annualized values are obtained by multiplying the infinite amount of CO2 saving per ha by the associated discount rate 2% and 5%.
- 7.
It makes sense to locate a power plant next to the coal mine (which is the case in Alberta). However, coal is sometimes shipped long distances. In some cases this is unavoidable because it is next to impossible to construct electrical transmission lines (e.g., Australian coal is shipped to other countries and used to generate electricity). In other cases, it might be preferable to generate electricity near the mine and ship it via high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) transmission lines (which experience least loss during transmission), thereby avoiding emissions from hauling coal long distance overland. This is the case in Ontario, where Alberta coal has been used to generate electricity.
- 8.
The only difference from the preceding analysis is that we calculate the energy from burning wood as follows: \( \frac{(n\times 1.59\times \omega ){\rm{m}}^{3}}{\rm{ha}}\times \frac{\rm{Wood BDt}}{b{\rm{m}}^{3}}\times \frac{20\rm{GJ}}{\rm{Wood BDt}}=\frac{31.8n\omega }{b}{\rm{GJ ha}}^{-1}\), where b is the number of cubic meters of green wood required to make one bone dry ton, with b = 2.65 for spruce and b = 1.80 for poplar (see Table 9.3).
- 9.
The Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM) at the University of Washington in Seattle conducts research into wood products, their life-cycle emissions and the extent to which wood substitutes for other materials. Information can be found in two special issues of Wood and Fiber Science (v. 37, December 2005; v. 42, Supp. 1, 2010). An overview is provided by Lippke et al. (2010).
- 10.
The results were reported in presentations given in early 2010 by a financial analyst, Don Roberts, at Canada’s CIBC bank.
- 11.
Wood pellets are easy to transport and can readily be used in lieu of coal in power plants; wood pellet production facilities are also simple to construct, and require relatively little capital investment.
- 12.
This argument has a counterpart in economics: Lenin and other communists argued that citizens were not yet capable of coping with or living in a purely socialist state, even though such a state was to their benefit; therefore, a transition period of dictatorship would be required (see Brown 2009). As argued below, the idea of a transition period during which sinks would sequester carbon is a solid one, but, in practice, the sink option is doomed by its drawbacks.
- 13.
See http://www.greenfleet.com.au/About_Greenfleet/index.aspx (viewed April 7, 2010).
- 14.
See http://www.greenfleet.com.au/Offset_emissions/index.aspx (viewed April 7, 2010).
- 15.
See http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/tfl.global_warming.html (viewed April 7, 2010).
- 16.
See http://www.haidaclimate.com/ (viewed April 7, 2010; originally viewed September 7, 2008).
- 17.
In both cases, the author was originally approached via telephone to help argue the case.
- 18.
Leakage estimates for conservation tillage are substantially less than this (Pattanayak et al. 2005).
- 19.
- 20.
See http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/projsearch.html (viewed April 7, 2010). A number of agricultural projects have also been approved under the CDM but these deal primarily with livestock wastes (e.g., reduction of methane emissions) and use of wastes and residuals for generating electricity or biofuels. Land use and land-use activities were absent.
- 21.
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van Kooten, G.C. (2013). Avoiding Emissions Reduction: Terrestrial Carbon Sinks. In: Climate Change, Climate Science and Economics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4988-7_9
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