Carbon Credit Buyers are Key to Unlocking Forest Carbon Mitigation Potential 

Forests can play a pivotal role in climate mitigation if sufficiently funded through carbon markets.  Carbon credit buyers are essential to achieving improved forest outcomes because finance is the major barrier to transitioning business-as-usual outcomes to climate-smart forestry.  Carbon markets are the only funding source sufficient to achieve scale.  

Improved forest management (IFM) practices increase carbon storage above business-as-usual. IFM practices are tailored to the ecological, economic, and social conditions of each forest. For instance, almost half of northern New England forests are in a ‘degraded’ condition, defined in a study by Gunn et al (2018) as having an insufficient density of commercial tree species to fully occupy available growing space. In this Acadian Forest, IFM practices on private lands could increase merchantable timber volumes and increase carbon storage by nearly 500 million mtCO₂e in 25 years. This represents a 26% increase above current storage on degraded lands, and is equal to 23% of the emissions reductions needed for New England to reach net-zero by 2050; an enormous opportunity. On the other side of the country, forest carbon sequestration could be increased by over 50% in Oregon using a combination of IFM practices including extended rotations.   

Scaling up improved forest management requires investment to overcome the initial costs and financial trade-offs involved in forgoing business-as-usual timber revenues to managing for carbon and long-term wood product supply. The level of greenhouse gas emission reductions achieved in this decade will largely determine whether warming can be limited to 1.5°C or 2°C. Climate mitigation now is more valuable than climate action even a year from now (IPCC, high confidence) and carbon markets are a ready and scalable tool to immediately finance a forest management transition.