• Who We Are
    • The Climate Trust
    • Climate Trust Capital
    • Achievements
    • Leadership And Board Of Directors
  • What We Do
    • Action
    • Impact
    • Case Studies
  • Financials
  • Media
    • Blog
    • News & Press
The Climate Trust | CARB forest offset crediting is conservative

CARB forest offset crediting is conservative

California Market, Forestry, Scorcher

Yesterday, California’s Air Resources Board held a public workshop to discuss the forest offset protocol and emerging science.  Big takeaways from a series of presentations by protocol experts and forest scientists include the inherent conservativeness of protocol crediting, the effectiveness of the common practice values for setting baseline floors, the likely over-contribution of buffer credits for wildfire risk, and the need to reduce costs to increase small landowner access.

Arguably, the most significant takeaway from the workshop was an illustration of the protocol’s inherent conservativeness in calculating credits, which are ultimately only a subset of the total greenhouse gas benefit of forest projects:

Perhaps the second-most important point was that most of the forestry projects’ minimum baseline values are at the common practice value. This indicates that while financial and legal analysis could justify more timber harvesting in the baseline, the common practice values are appropriately functioning as a baseline floor and guarantor of additionality.

Recently published research by Oregon State University’s Professor Mark Harmon was also highlighted. This field-based study found that in high severity fires (basal area mortality >75%), above ground woody biomass combustion is only 1.2% – 3.2% at the stand level.  This indicates that buffer credit retirements following wildfire may be overly conservative because much of the biomass is actually moving into woody debris and soil carbon pools rather than being emitted into the atmosphere.

Discussions also highlighted the need to reduce costs while maintaining high levels of stringency to increase carbon market access for small landowners.  Adjustments to required verification intervals, allowing technological solutions to augment field-based inventory and verification, and allowing total forest volume statistical tests instead of sequential plot tests during verification were all referenced.

1. CARB Workshop Materials
2. Harmon, Mark E., Chad T. Hanson, and Dominick A. DellaSala. 2022. “Combustion of Aboveground Wood from Live Trees in Megafires, CA, USA” Forests 13, no. 3: 391.

Tags
Adaptation
Aggregation
American Carbon Registry
Biochar
Blue Carbon
C-AGG
California Air Resources Board
California Carbon Info
Cap and Invest
carbon offset standards
Carbon Pricing
Carbon-Pulse
Clean Power Plan
Climate Action Reserve
Climate Bonds
Conservation Finance Network
Corporate Social Responsibility
CORSIA
Culture
Dairy Digester
Ecosystem Marketplace
Edible Portland
Energy Central
Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Justice
EPAF
Farm Power Northwest
GreenBiz
IPCC
Job Announcement
Leadership
Low Carbon Fuel Standard
Milestone
Oregon Carbon Dioxide Standard
Oregon Clean Fuels Program
Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council
Oregon Global Warming Commission
Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy
Paris
Portland General Electric
REDD
Renewable Fuel Standard
Renewable Identification Numbers
Request For Proposal
RGGI
Rice
Risk Management
Scientific American
Social Cost of Carbon
Supply Chain
Sustainable Business Oregon
Triple Pundit
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Verified Carbon Standard
Western Climate Initiative
Recent Comments
Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Proud Member Partners in Diversity
  • DONATE
  • CAREERS
  • CONTACT

©2020 The Climate Trust. Crafted by ILLUSIO