The ‘hidden’ social costs of forestry offsets |
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Authors: | Colin Hunt Seth Baum |
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Institution: | (1) School of Economics, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, 4072, Australia;(2) Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA |
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Abstract: | The article quantifies the size of ‘hidden’ social costs that are incurred by forestry offsets in the voluntary market that
promise to offset present emissions sometime in the future. It does this by estimating the difference between the social costs
of carbon (C) emitted and of costs offset by removal of C from the atmosphere by reforestation/afforestation. All current
attempts to make forestry offsets more reliable focus on quality control rather than the mismatch of the timing of emissions
and their offset. Recommendations that follow from the analysis are twofold. First, that markets for carbon dioxide equivalent
(CO2e) removals by voluntary offsets should be confined to the annual incremental removals actually achieved. Second, the
promoters of voluntary offsets projects should declare the annual stream of carbon credits and debits expected so that buyers
can place a present value on such projects. |
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Keywords: | Afforestation/reforestation Carbon sequestration Carbon markets Voluntary offsets Social costs of carbon |
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