Abstract
As one of the leading programs and largest subnational carbon-crediting mechanism in the world, California’s Offset Program and carbon market reflect key aspects of polycentric governance, including public and private actors interacting in rule-governed relationships, multifaceted strategies for carbon reductions, multiple jurisdictions, and standards of accountability, legitimacy, and environmental integrity. Participation in California’s program, however, remains low particularly among private forest owners who own the majority (56%) of forests in the United States (Butler et al. Family forest ownerships of the United States, 2018: results from the USDA Forest Service, National Woodland Owner Survey. General Technical Reports NRS-199. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Madison. https://doi.org/10.2737/NRS-GTR-199). This paper therefore asks: what characteristics encourage or discourage participation in California’s program, and which interactions among related situations inform participation and the supply of forest offsets? To address these questions, the analysis adopts the network of action situations approach as a diagnostic tool for understanding interactions among related decisions for forest carbon commoditization under California’s system for climate mitigation. The analysis relies on policy documents, offset projects data, semi-structured interviews, and empirical literature. Findings show how technically complex rules designed to protect the environmental integrity of offsets create interdependencies via multiple long-term contracts and increase participation costs relative to uncertain future payoffs. Results also highlight the important role of expert and state actors, and suggest that experimentation with carbon accounting methodologies, issues of scale, and uncertainty are likely to shape the future of forest carbon governance.
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Data availability
Data are available upon request from the author.
Notes
Programs where regulatory obligations drive the purchase of offsets.
Individuals owning less than 4 ha of forestland.
Reforestation projects receive credits for increasing forest cover; improved forest management projects are credited for reducing harvests; avoided conversion projects earn credits for removing the risk of deforestation.
Specifically: ARB protocols and guidance documents, California Code of Regulations, California Global Warming Solutions Act, and carbon registry documents.
ARBOCs issuance was obtained from CARB’s Offset Credit Issuance Table. Project documentation was accessed through Offer Project Registries, including: the listing, annual reports, and verification statements.
CARB can invalidate credits up to 8 years following issuance if: carbon estimates are negative; reports overstate carbon reductions by more than 5%; projects are in non-compliance; or credits are double-issued for the same period. Projects can be terminated for failing to submit required reports and verifications, or renewed for another 25-year crediting period (CCR 2016).
ROCs must be converted to ARBOCs for compliance market transactions. CARB-approved registries include Climate Action Reserve, American Carbon Registry, and Verra.
Early action projects were developed as part of the market’s pilot phase before 2013.
Family forest ownerships are held by individuals, families, trusts, estates, and family partnerships (Butler et al. 2021).
On 9/12/2017, CARB recorded an unintentional reversal of 1,063,590 mtCO2e. This wildfire-caused reversal resulted in project termination and retirement of 847,895 ARBOCs from the Buffer Account. Project termination occurs when carbon stock falls below the baseline. Four other projects involved: intentional reversal of 10,873 mtCO2e (12/26/2017); intentional reversal of 20,297 mtCO2e (9/22/2020); intentional reversal of 27,150 mtCO2e (01/26/2021); and unintentional reversal of 276,867 mtCO2e (4/13/2021) due to wildfire.
As of July 2021, 66,160,153 credits have been retired, representing 36% of forest offsets issued (CARB 2022).
As of Sept 2022. The global weighted price of carbon averages $21, with greater variability of voluntary market prices ($3–$47) (World Bank 2020).
Senate Bill 398 about limits on offset use and requirement for locality.
Senate Bill 1391 (Feb 2022) discussing offset additionality concerns.
Eligibility requirements include project type, ownership, location, forest condition, and compliance with local, state, federal environmental, health, and safety regulations. Projects in Hawaii and US territories are ineligible, as are federal lands.
A recent analysis of 65 projects suggests that CARB over-credited 30.0 million tCO2e, highlighting problems with adverse selection (Badgely et al. 2021).
Senate Bill 1391 from February 2022 to review concerns of offset additionality, and Senate Bill 398 (2017).
An example is the practice-based approach under the newly launched Family Forest Carbon Program (Greener 2021).
Notably, the linkage between California’s and Québec’s cap-and-trade programs allowing for instrument transfers between the two jurisdictions. A legal challenge to the constitutionality of this linkage was dismissed in a U.S. federal court (National Law Review 2020).
RGGI states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The first seven administer offset programs.
Initial rules included an increase in offset ceiling to 5–10%, but later revisions eliminated offsets use.
Oregon’s forestry administration has authorized forest offsets use.
Washington’s program includes a Small Forestland Owners Workgroup to recommend incentives supporting small-scale forest owners (CCA 2021).
Articles 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement.
Abbreviations
- APD:
-
Authorized project designee
- AS:
-
Action situation
- ARBOC:
-
Air Resources Board Offset Credits
- BAU:
-
Business-as-usual
- CARB:
-
California Air Resources Board
- CCOP:
-
California’s Compliance Offset Program
- CITSS:
-
Compliance Instrument Tracking System Service
- DEBS:
-
Direct Environmental Benefits to the State
- MRV:
-
Monitoring, reporting, and verification
- MtCO2e:
-
Metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent
- NAS:
-
Network of action situations
- OPO:
-
Offset project operator
- OPR:
-
Offset project registry
- OPDR:
-
Offset project data report
- PAR:
-
Principal–agent relationship
- REDD +:
-
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program
- ROC:
-
Registry Offset Credits
- RGGI:
-
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
- SES:
-
Social–ecological system
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the University of North Carolina Inter-institutional Collaborative Grant FY2018-2019 and a 2019 CONCERT grant from the Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics at Appalachian State University. The author thanks all interviewees, Michael McGinnis for helpful suggestions with the analysis and visualizations, graduate students Kayla Young and Erin Bishop-Voss for research assistance, the Appalachian Carbon Research Group for inspiring this study, as well as the anonymous reviewers and editor for their constructive comments to this article.
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Appendix
Appendix
List of interviews
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1.
Semi-structured interview, Expert A, June 2015.
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2.
Semi-structured interview, Expert B, July 2015.
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3.
Semi-structured interview, Project participant A, June 2015.
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4.
Semi-structured interview, Project participant B, July 2015.
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5.
Semi-structured interview, Project participant C, March 2017.
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6.
Structured interview, Delisted project developer A, July 2015.
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7.
Structured interview, Delisted project developer B, July 2015.
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8.
Structured interview, Delisted project participant C, July 2015.
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9.
Structured interview, Delisted project participant D, July 2015.
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10.
Structured interview, Delisted project participant E, July 2015.
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11.
Semi-structured interview, Offset project registry staff A, June 2015.
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12.
Semi-structured interview, Offset project registry staff B, June 2015, October 2017.
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13.
Semi-structured interview, Offset project registry staff C, May and October, 2018.
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14.
Semi-structured interview, Verifier A, July 2015.
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15.
Semi-structured interview, Verifier B and past project developer, February 2017.
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16.
Semi-structured interview, Project developer A, July 2015.
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17.
Semi-structured interview, Project developer B, March 2017.
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18.
Semi-structured interview, Project developer C, October 2018.
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19.
Semi-structured interview, Project developer D, June 2019.
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20.
Semi-structured interview, Project developer E, May 2020.
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21.
Semi-structured interview, Project developer F, April 2021.
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Ruseva, T.B. The governance of forest carbon in a subnational climate mitigation system: insights from a network of action situations approach. Sustain Sci 18, 59–78 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01262-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01262-4