Community and farm forestry climate mitigation projects: case studies from Uttaranchal,India

The methodologies for forest mitigation projects still present challenges to project developers for fulfillment of criteria within the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or other such mechanisms for the purpose of earning carbon credits. This paper systematically approaches the process of establishing carbon (C) stocks for baseline (BSL) and mitigation scenario (MSL) for two case studies i.e., community and farm forestry projects in Uttaranchal, India. The analysis of various interventions shows that both projects present high carbon mitigation potential. However, the C reversibility risk is lower in long-rotation pine and mixed species plantation on community lands. The project is financially viable though not highly lucrative but the carbon mitigation potential in this ‘restoration of degraded lands’ type of project is immense provided challenges in the initial phase are adequately overcome. C revenue is an essential driver for investors in community projects. The short-rotation timber species such as Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus), Poplar (Populus) have high internal rates of return (IRR) and high carbon benefit reversibility potential due to fluctuations in market prices of commodities produced. The land holdings are small and bundling is desired for projects to achieve economies of scale. The methodological concerns such as sampling intensities, monitoring methodologies, sharing of benefits with communities and bundling arrangements for projects need further research to make these projects viable.     

Climate change mitigation strategies in the forest sector: biophysical impacts and economic implications in British Columbia,Canada

Managing forests to increase carbon sequestration or reduce carbon emissions and using wood products and bioenergy to store carbon and substitute for other emission-intensive products and fossil fuel energy have been considered effective ways to tackle climate change in many countries and regions. The objective of this study is to examine the climate change mitigation potential of the forest sector by developing and assessing potential mitigation strategies and portfolios with various goals in British Columbia (BC), Canada. From a systems perspective, mitigation potentials of five individual strategies and their combinations were examined with regionally differentiated implementations of changes. We also calculated cost curves for the strategies and explored socio-economic impacts using an input-output model. Our results showed a wide range of mitigation potentials and that both the magnitude and the timing of mitigation varied across strategies. The greatest mitigation potential was achieved by improving the harvest utilization, shifting the commodity mix to longer-lived wood products, and using harvest residues for bioenergy. The highest cumulative mitigation of 421 MtCO₂e for BC was estimated when employing the strategy portfolio that maximized domestic mitigation during 2017–2050, and this would contribute 35% of BC’s greenhouse gas emission reduction target by 2050 at less than $100/tCO₂e and provide additional socio-economic benefits. This case study demonstrated the application of an integrated systems approach that tracks carbon stock changes and emissions in forest ecosystems, harvested wood products (HWPs), and the avoidance of emissions through the use of HWPs and is therefore applicable to other countries and regions.     

Atmospheric impacts of the life cycle emissions of fuel ethanol in Brazil: based on chemical exergy

An assessment is made of the atmospheric emissions from the life cycle of fuel ethanol coupled with the cogeneration of electricity from sugarcane in Brazil. The total exergy loss from the most quantitative relevant atmospheric emission substances produced by the life cycle of fuel ethanol is 3.26E+05 kJ/t of C₂H₅OH. Compared with the chemical exergy of 1 t of ethanol (calculated as 34.56E+06 kJ), the exergy loss from the life cycle's atmospheric emission represents 1.11% of the product's exergy. The activity that most contributes to atmospheric emission chemical exergy losses is the harvesting of sugarcane through the methane emitted in burning. Suggestions for improved environmental quality and greater efficiency of the life cycle of fuel ethanol with cogenerated energy are: harvesting the sugarcane without burning, renewable fuels should be used in tractors, trucks and buses instead of fossil fuel and the transportation of products and input should be logistically optimized.     

Methodological issues in forestry mitigation projects: a case study of Kolar district

There is a need to assess climate change mitigation opportunities in forest sector in India in the context of methodological issues such as additionality, permanence, leakage and baseline development in formulating forestry mitigation projects. A case study of forestry mitigation project in semi-arid community grazing lands and farmlands in Kolar district of Karnataka, was undertaken with regard to baseline and project scenario development, estimation of carbon stock change in the project, leakage estimation and assessment of cost-effectiveness of mitigation projects. Further, the transaction costs to develop project, and environmental and socio-economic impact of mitigation project was assessed. The study shows the feasibility of establishing baselines and project C-stock changes. Since the area has low or insignificant biomass, leakage is not an issue. The overall mitigation potential in Kolar for a total area of 14,000 ha under various mitigation options is 278,380 t C at a rate of 20 t C/ha for the period 2005–2035, which is approximately 0.67 t C/ha/year inclusive of harvest regimes under short rotation and long rotation mitigation options. The transaction cost for baseline establishment is less than a rupee/t C and for project scenario development is about Rs. 1.5–3.75/t C. The project enhances biodiversity and the socio-economic impact is also significant.

《能效融资:巴西、中国、印度的教训及其他》

随着能源价格和温室气体排放激增,同时中国、印度和巴西的能源需求高涨,能否在这些发展中大国成功地开展节能工作,与全世界利害攸关。世界银行于2008年2月27日发布的一本新书《能效融资：巴西、中国、印度的教训及其他》（简称《能效融资》）如是说。     

Adaptation and mitigation as complementary tools for reducing the risk of climate impacts

This paper uses the likelihood of flooding along Brahmaputra and Ganges Rivers in India to explore the hypothesis that adaptation and mitigation can be viewed as complements rather than sustitutes. For futures where climate change will produce smooth, monotonic and manageable effects, adopting a mitigation strategy is shown to increase the ability of adaptation to reduce the likelihood of crossing critical threshold of tolerable climate. For futures where climate change will produce variable impacts overtime, though, it is possible that mitigation will make adaptation less productive for some time intervals. In cases of exaggerated climate change, adaptation may fail entirely regardless of how much mitigation is applied. Judging the degree of complementarity is therefore an empirical question because the relative efficacy of adaptation is site specific and path dependent. It follows that delibrations over climate policy should rely more on detailed analyses of how the distributions of possible impacts of climate might change over space and time.

Issues and challenges for forest-based carbon-offset projects: A case study of the Noel Kempff climate action project in Bolivia

The Noel Kempff Climate Action Project in Bolivia, nowin its third year, is breaking ground to establishcredible and verifiable methods to quantify greenhousegas (GHG) benefits of land-use change and forestry (LUCF)projects. Developed under the United Nations FrameworkConvention Climate Change (FCCC) Activities ImplementedJointly pilot phase, the project conserves naturalforests that would otherwise have been subjected tocontinued logging and future agricultural conversion.Carbon (C) monitoring began with a C inventory of theproject area in 1997. The total amount of C in theproject area was 118 Tg (Tg = 10¹²g) ± 4%(95% confidence interval). Periodic monitoring ofrelevant C pools (occurring in 1999 and every 5 yrthereafter) occurs over the 30-year life of theproject to establish the difference between thewith-project and projected without-project scenarios. Permanent sample plots were established both insidethe project area to monitor changes in C pools overtime and in a proxy logging concession near theproject area to determine changes in C pools inforests that have been impacted by logging. Ground-based monitoring is complemented by datacollection on forest industry trends and land-usechange patterns. Remote sensing was used to developa vegetation stratification map of the area, and workis ongoing to investigate the potential application ofdual-camera aerial videography to improve theefficiency of monitoring over time.     

The sensitivity of the costs of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) to future socioeconomic drivers and its implications for mitigation policy design

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - Climate change mitigation policies for the land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector are commonly assessed based on marginal...     

Managing dependencies in forest offset projects: toward a more complete evaluation of reversal risk

Although forest carbon offsets can play an important role in the implementation of comprehensive climate policy, they also face an inherent risk of reversal. If such risks are positively correlated across projects, it can affect the integrity of larger project portfolios and potentially the entire offsets program. Here, we discuss three types of risks that could affect forest offsets—fat tails, micro-correlation, and tail dependence—and provide examples of how they could present themselves in a forest offset context. Given these potential dependencies, we suggest several new risk management approaches that take into account dependencies in reversal risk across projects and which could help guard the climate integrity of an offsets program. We also argue that data collection be included as an integral part of any offsets program so that disturbance-related dependencies may be identified and managed as early and to the greatest extent possible.     

Climate change mitigation and international finance: the effectiveness of the Clean Development Mechanism and the Global Environment Facility in India and Brazil

This study analyzes the effectiveness and efficiency of the two principal United Nations (UN) climate change mitigation finance mechanisms, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The realised abatement and costs of the two mechanisms in India and Brazil (using data from 28 GEF and 233 CDM project documents) are compared with theoretical marginal abatement cost curves, based on bottom-up technology studies. We find that both mechanisms have focused on negative and low-cost abatement potential but still leave substantial theoretical potential in this cost range untapped. CDM has more effectively harvested abatement potential of industrial gases and methane emissions, whereas GEF has more successfully targeted demand-side energy efficiency (EE) and transport emission reduction opportunities. CDM has excelled at capturing abatement potential in areas with a limited understanding of abatement, highlighting the shortcomings of theoretical estimates (such as Marginal Abatement Cost Curves) and the benefits of a market mechanism. In some sectors and technologies (particularly renewable energy), the two mechanisms overlapped, which suggests a need for better coordination in the future.     

Integrated modelling approaches to analysis of climate change impacts on forests and forest management

This paper reviews integrated economic and ecological models that address impacts and adaptation to climate change in the forest sector. Early economic model studies considered forests as one out of many possible impacts of climate change, while ecological model studies tended to limit the economic impacts to fixed price-assumptions. More recent studies include broader representations of both systems, but there are still few studies which can be regarded fully integrated. Full integration of ecological and economic models is needed to address forest management under climate change appropriately. The conclusion so far is that there are vast uncertainties about how climate change affects forests. This is partly due to the limited knowledge about the global implications of the social and economical adaptation to the effects of climate change on forests.     

Contribution of spatially explicit models to climate change adaptation and mitigation plans for a priority forest habitat

Climate change will impact forest ecosystems, their biodiversity and the livelihoods they sustain. Several adaptation and mitigation strategies to counteract climate change impacts have been proposed for these ecosystems. However, effective implementation of such strategies requires a clear understanding of how climate change will influence the future distribution of forest ecosystems. This study uses maximum entropy modelling (MaxEnt) to predict environmentally suitable areas for cork oak (Quercus suber) woodlands, a socio-economically important forest ecosystem protected by the European Union Habitats Directive. Specifically, we use two climate change scenarios to predict changes in environmental suitability across the entire geographical range of the cork oak and in areas where stands were recently established. Up to 40 % of current environmentally suitable areas for cork oak may be lost by 2070, mainly in northern Africa and southern Iberian Peninsula. Almost 90 % of new cork oak stands are predicted to lose suitability by the end of the century, but future plantations can take advantage of increasing suitability in northern Iberian Peninsula and France. The predicted impacts cross-country borders, showing that a multinational strategy, will be required for cork oak woodland adaptation to climate change. Such a strategy must be regionally adjusted, featuring the protection of refugia sites in southern areas and stimulating sustainable forest management in areas that will keep long-term suitability. Afforestation efforts should also be promoted but must consider environmental suitability and land competition issues.     

Plant trees for the planet: the potential of forests for climate change mitigation and the major drivers of national forest area

Forests are one of the most cost-effective ways to sequester carbon today. Here, I estimate the world’s land share under forests required to prevent dangerous climate change. For this, I combine newest longitudinal data of FLUXNET on forests’ net ecosystem exchange of carbon (NEE) from 78 forest sites (N?=?607) with countries’ mean temperature and forest area. This straightforward approach indicates that the world’s forests sequester 8.3 GtCO₂year^?1. For the 2 °C climate target, the current forest land share has to be doubled to 60.0% to sequester an additional 7.8 GtCO₂year^?1, which demands less red meat consumption. This afforestation/reforestation (AR) challenge is achievable, as the estimated global biophysical potential of AR is 8.0 GtCO₂year^?1 safeguarding food supply for 10 billion people. Climate-responsible countries have the highest AR potential. For effective climate policies, knowledge on the major drivers of forest area is crucial. Enhancing information here, I analyze forest land share data of 98 countries from 1990 to 2015 applying causal inference (N?=?2494). The results highlight that population growth, industrialization, and increasing temperature reduce forest land share, while more protected forest and economic growth generally increase it. In all, this study confirms the potential of AR for climate change mitigation with a straightforward approach based on the direct measurement of NEE. This might provide a more valid picture given the shortcomings of indirect carbon stock-based inventories. The analysis identifies future regional hotspots for the AR potential and informs the need for fast and forceful action to prevent dangerous climate change.

     

Correction to: Plant trees for the planet: the potential of forests for climate change mitigation and the major drivers of national forest area

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake in the Acknowledgement section.     

Estimating environmental benefits of natural hazard mitigation with data transfer: results from a benefit-cost analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency hazard mitigation grants

This paper summarizes methods, data and results associated with the first major attempt to evaluate the environmental benefits of U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency natural hazards mitigation grants. The study relied heavily on the refinement of benefit transfer methods. Categories of benefits include water quality for recreational and commercial fishing, drinking water, outdoor recreation, hazardous waste, wetlands and aesthetic, health and safety benefits. Environmental and historic benefits proved to be a very minor proportion of the total benefits in dollar terms. Only a very small percentage of earthquake and wind-related hazards yielded environmental benefits, while a sizeable percentage of flood hazard grants did so. We also discuss the prospects that environmental benefits might have been much greater had data been available to analyze more environmental impacts.     

Collaborative governance and adaptive management: Lessons from California's CALFED Water Program

Both for its technological and institutional innovations and for its history of conflicts, California's water system has been one of the most observed in the world. This article and this Special Issue on the CALFED Bay-Delta Program continue in this tradition. CALFED is likely the most ambitious experiment in collaborative environmental policy and adaptive management the world has seen to date. This Issue moves beyond the celebratory tone of other analyses of collaborative, adaptive management and looks closer into how collaborative networks work to produce innovation, and more importantly to reflect also on their inherent contradictions, limitations and “dark sides”. While collaborative governance enhances mutual understandings and can be a source of innovation, it appears ill-suited to resolve alone the distributive dilemmas at the core of many water – and other environmental – conflicts. A lacuna in existing research concerns the institutional design of effective boundaries and linkages between democratic politics, legitimate authority, and adaptive governance, i.e. the mix of institutions that can provide sufficient responsibility, accountability and democratic legitimacy, without choking off the self-organizing interaction, shared learning, and communication that is at the heart of collaboration. A painful realization in the Delta is that environmental conservation and further growth may be fundamentally at odds; efficient win–win solutions, institutional or technological, seem insufficient to satisfy the competing demands posed upon the system. Radical decisions and changes might be necessary, but they seem unlikely under current institutional arrangements and political conditions.     

Pledges for climate mitigation: the effects of the Copenhagen accord on CO2 emissions and mitigation costs

The UN Framework Convention of Climate Change 15th Conference of the Parties Copenhagen Accord has been followed up by national pledges of greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the year 2020 without specifying measures to enforce actions. As a consequence, the capacity of parties to fulfil their obligations is of basic interest. This article outlines the effects of full compliance with pledges on greenhouse gas emissions, economic growth, and trade. The study is based on the global computable general equilibrium model global responses to anthropogenic changes in the environment (GRACE) distinguishing between fossil and non-fossil energy use. Global emissions from fossil fuels in 2020 turn out to be 15 % lower than in a business as usual scenario and 3 % below the global emissions from fossil fuels in 2005. China and India increase their emissions to 1 % and 5 % above business as usual levels in 2020. India and Russia increase their net export of steel corresponding to around 30 and 45 % of their production levels in 2020. In spite of some leakage of energy intensive production also to China, we find that structural change remains the dominant factor behind the rapid reduction of CO₂ emission intensity in China towards 2020.     

Land use as a mitigation strategy for the water-quality impacts of global warming: a scenario analysis on two watersheds in the Ohio River Basin

This study uses an integrative approach to study the water-quality impacts of future global climate and land-use changes. In this study, changing land-use types was used as a mitigation strategy to reduce the adverse impacts of global climate change on water resources. The climate scenarios were based on projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Kingdom Hadley Centre's climate model (HadCM2). The Thornthwaite water-balance model was coupled with a land-use model (L-THIA) to investigate the hydrologic effects of future climate and land-use changes in the Ohio River Basin. The land-use model is based on the Soil Conservation Service's curve-number method. It uses the curve number, an index of land use and soil type, to calculate runoff volume and depth. The ArcView programming language, Avenue, was used to integrate the two models into a geographic information system (GIS). An output of the water-balance model, daily precipitation values adjusted for potential evapotranspiration, served as one of the inputs into the land-use model. Two watersheds were used in the present study: one containing the city of Cincinnati on the main stem of the Ohio River, and one containing the city of Columbus on a tributary of the Ohio River. These cities represent two major metropolitan areas in the Ohio River Basin with different land uses experiencing different rates of population growth. The projected hypothetical land-use changes were based on linear extrapolations of current population data. Results of the analyses indicate that conversion from agricultural land use to low-density residential land use may decrease the amount of surface runoff. The land-use practices which generate the least amount of runoff are forest, low-density residential, and agriculture; whereas high-density residential and commercial land-use types produce the highest runoff. The hydrologic soil type present was also an important factor in determining the amount of runoff and non-point-source pollution. A runoff-depth matrix and total nitrogen matrix were created for Cincinnati and Columbus to describe possible land-use mitigation measures in response to global climate change. The differences in Cincinnati and Columbus were due to differences in geographic location, air temperature, and total runoff. The results of this study may be useful to planners and policy makers for defining the possible impacts of future global climate and land-use changes on water resources.