Improved assessment of baseline and additionality for forest carbon crediting

Abstract

In the California compliance cap-and-trade carbon market, improved forest management (IFM) projects generate carbon credits in the initial reporting period if their initial carbon stocks are greater than a baseline. This baseline is informed by a "common practice" stocking value, which represents the average carbon stocks of surveyed privately owned forests that are classified into the same general forest type by the California Air Resources Board.Recent work has called attention to the need for more ecologically informed common practice carbon stocking values for IFM projects, particularly those in areas with sharp ecological gradients. Current methods for estimating common practice produce biases in baseline carbon values that lead to a clustering of IFM projects in geographical areas and ecosystem types that in fact support much greater forest carbon stocks than reflected in the common practice. This phenomenon compromises additionality, or the increases in carbon sequestration or decreases in carbon emissions that would not have occurred in the absence of carbon crediting. This study seeks to expand

Aligning incentives for carbon dioxide removal

“…This market, and the industry it is meant to support, are extremely nascent. Many initial CDR efforts-mostly focused on storage of organic carbon within the terrestrial biosphere or soils-have yielded mixed results, drawing into question the validity of carbon credits [7][8][9][10][11]. Not surprisingly, there is currently a push to reevaluate the structure and governance of carbon removal marketplaces.…”