Land use change and forestry climate project regional baselines: a review

Climate change programs have largely used the project-specific approach for estimating baseline emissions of climate mitigation projects. This approach is subjective, lacks transparency, can generate inconsistent baselines for similar projects, and is likely to have high transaction costs. The use of regional baselines, which partially addresses these issues, has been reported in the literature on forestry and agriculture projects, and in greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation program guidance for them (e.g., WRI/WBCSD GHG Project Protocol, USDOE’s 1605(b) registry, UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism). This paper provides an assessment of project-specific and regional baselines approaches for key baseline tasks, using project and program examples. The regional experience to date is then synthesized into generic steps that are referred to as Stratified Regional Baselines (SRB). Regional approaches generally, and SRB in particular explicitly acknowledge the heterogeneity of carbon density, land use change, and other key baseline driver variables across a landscape. SRB focuses on providing guidance on how to stratify lands into parcels with relatively homogeneous characteristics to estimate conservative baselines within a GHG assessment boundary, by applying systematic methods to determine the boundary and time period for input data.

International Workshop on Sustainable Forestry Management: Monitoring and Verification of Greenhouse Gases - Summary Statement

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change -     

Implications of climate change on mitigation potential estimates for forest sector in India

Climate change is projected to impact forest ecosystems, including biodiversity and Net Primary Productivity (NPP). National level carbon forest sector mitigation potential estimates are available for India; however impacts of projected climate change are not included in the mitigation potential estimates. Change in NPP (in gC/m²/yr) is taken to represent the impacts of climate change. Long term impacts of climate change (2085) on the NPP of Indian forests are available; however no such regional estimates are available for short and medium terms. The present study based on GCM climatology scenarios projects the short, medium and long term impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems especially on NPP using BIOME4 vegetation model. We estimate that under A2 scenario by the year 2030 the NPP changes by (−5) to 40% across different agro-ecological zones (AEZ). By 2050 it increases by 15% to 59% and by 2070 it increases by 34 to 84%. However, under B2 scenario it increases only by 3 to 25%, 3.5 to 34% and (−2.5) to 38% respectively, in the same time periods. The cumulative mitigation potential is estimated to increase by up to 21% (by nearly 1 GtC) under A2 scenario between the years 2008 and 2108, whereas, under B2 the mitigation potential increases only by 14% (646 MtC). However, cumulative mitigation potential estimates obtained from IBIS—a dynamic global vegetation model suggest much smaller gains, where mitigation potential increases by only 6% and 5% during the period 2008 to 2108.     

Carbon mitigation potential and costs of forestry options in Brazil,China, India,Indonesia, Mexico,the Philippines and Tanzania

This paper summarizes studies of carbon (C) mitigation potential and costs of about 40 forestry options in seven developing countries. Each study uses the same methodological approach – Comprehensive Mitigation Assessment Process (COMAP) – to estimate the above parameters between 2000 and 2030. The approach requires the projection of baseline and mitigation land-use scenarios. Coupled with data on a per ha basis on C sequestration or avoidance, and costs and benefits, it allows the estimation of monetary benefit per Mg C, and the total costs and carbon potential. The results show that about half (3.0 Pg C) the cumulative mitigation potential of 6.2 Petagram (Pg) C between 2000 and 2030 in the seven countries (about 200× 10⁶ Mg C yr^-1) could be achieved at a negative cost and the remainder at costs ranging up to $100 Mg C^-1. About 5 Pg C could be achieved, at a cost less than $20 per Mg C. Negative cost potential indicates that non-carbon revenue is sufficient to offset direct costs of these options. The achievable potential is likely to be smaller, however, due to market, institutional, and sociocultural barriers that can delay or prevent the implementation of the analyzed options.     

Methodological and Practical Considerations for Developing Multiproject Baselines for Electric Power and Cement Industry Projects in Central America

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Center for Sustainable Development in the Americas (CSDA) conducted technical studies and organized two training workshops to develop capacity in Central America for the evaluation of climate change projects. This paper describes the results of two baseline case studies conducted for these workshops, one for the power sector and one for the cement industry, that were devised to illustrate certain approaches to baseline setting. Multiproject baseline emission rates (BERs) for the main Guatemalan electricity grid were calculated from 2001 data. In recent years, the Guatemalan power sector has experienced rapid growth; thus, a sufficient number of new plants have been built to estimate viable BERs. We found that BERs for baseload plants offsetting additional baseload capacity ranged from 0.702 kgCO2/kWh (using a weighted average stringency) to 0.507 kgCO2/kWh (using a 10th percentile stringency), while the baseline for plants offsetting load-following capacity is lower at 0.567 kgCO2/kWh. For power displaced from existing load-following plants, the rate is higher, 0.735 kgCO2/kWh, as a result of the age of some plants used for meeting peak loads and the infrequency of their use. The approved consolidated methodology for the Clean Development Mechanism yields a single rate of 0.753 kgCO2/kWh. Due to the relatively small number of cement plants in the region and the regional nature of the cement market, all of Central America was chosen as the geographic boundary for setting cement industry BERs. Unfortunately, actual operations and output data were unobtainable for most of the plants in the region, and many data were estimated. Cement industry BERs ranged from 205 kgCO2 to 225 kgCO2 per metric ton of cement.     

Impacts of climatic disasters in coastal Bangladesh: why does private adaptive capacity differ?

This paper quantitatively assesses the influences of various demographic and socio-economic factors, past adaptive behavioral factors, access to weather/climate information, and spatial/locational factors on coastal populations’ perceived adaptive capacity against major impacts of hydro-meteorological disasters on their livelihood. A total of 285 respondents from three coastal villages in Bangladesh were randomly interviewed between January and April 2009. Respondents rated their perceived adaptive capacity against 25 anticipated impacts of sea-level rise (SLR)-induced events on their livelihood. By employing the principal component analysis (PCA), perceived adaptive capacity was grouped into five major categories. Then, an adaptive capacity index for each of five major impacts, namely, “infrastructure damage and disrupted mobility,” “food and nutritional insecurity,” “low earning and higher cost of maintenance,” “loss of employment in offshore activities,” and “crisis of potable water and public health risk,” was prepared. How adaptive capacity against each of these major five categories of impacts differs due to the influence of various factors was assessed by employing the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) technique. The MANOVAs show that age, sex, level of education, type of occupation, farmland holdings, past adaptive behavior against rainfall, salinity intrusion, freshwater crises, use of radio for weather information, and the distance of the homestead from the shoreline have varying levels of influence on respondents’ perceived adaptive capacity against each of the five major categories of impacts. Others factors have moderate to limited influences. The policy implication is that specific programs, rather than a generic one-size fits all program, must be initiated for enhancement of adaptive capacity against specific impacts.     

GHG Mitigation Potential and Cost in Tropical Forestry - Relative Role for Agroforestry

This paper summarizes studies of carbon mitigation potential (MP) and costs of forestry options in seven developing countries with a focus on the role of agroforestry. A common methodological approach known as comprehensive mitigation assessment process (COMAP) was used in each study to estimate the potential and costs between 2000 and 2030. The approach requires the projection of baseline and mitigation land-use scenarios derived from the demand for forest products and forestland for other uses such as agriculture and pasture. By using data on estimated carbon sequestration, emission avoidance, costs and benefits, the model enables one to estimate cost effectiveness indicators based on monetary benefit per t C, as well as estimates of total mitigation costs and potential when the activities are implemented at equilibrium level. The results show that about half the MP of 6.9 Gt C (an average of 223 Mt C per year) between 2000 and 2030 in the seven countries could be achieved at a negative cost, and the other half at costs not exceeding $100 per t C. Negative cost indicates that non-carbon revenue is sufficient to offset direct costs of about half of the options. The agroforestry options analyzed bear a significant proportion of the potential at medium to low cost per t C when compared to other options. The role of agroforestry in these countries varied between 6% and 21% of the MP, though the options are much more cost effective than most due to the low wage or opportunity cost of rural labor. Agroforestry options are attractive due to the large number of people and potential area currently engaged in agriculture, but they pose unique challenges for carbon and cost accounting due to the dispersed nature of agricultural activities in the tropics, as well as specific difficulties arising from requirements for monitoring, verification, leakage assessment and the establishment of credible baselines.     

Adaptation in situ or retreat? A multivariate approach to explore the factors that guide the peoples' preference against the impacts of sea level rise in coastal Bangladesh

This paper is aimed to identify the factors that influence peoples' preference for adaptation against the impacts of sea level rise (SLR). A total of 285 respondents from three coastal villages in Bangladesh are randomly interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. First, employing the principal component analysis various factors that influence adaptation preferences of people are identified. These factors are related to “demographic and social aspects”, “wealth and economic standing”, “past coping and adaptive behaviour”, “climate knowledge and information” and “spatial aspect” of life. What is common in these factors is their ability to influence peoples' vulnerability. Finally, the binomial logistic regression model is employed to compute the explanatory power of these factors to predict the respondents' preference for adaptation in situ over retreat or vice versa. Model findings are robust for two scenarios of SLR, i.e. 2050–2075 (LR χ ²?=?133.65, pseudo-R ²?=?0.53, p?<?0.001) and 2080–2100 (LR χ ²?=?282.61, pseudo-R ²?=?0.85, p?<?0.001). Therefore, it is concluded that to avoid relocation of substantial number of people initiative for encouraging adaptation in situ must be taken along side establishment of safe shelter, community radio service and campaign for raising climate awareness.