Net carbon accounting and reporting are a barrier to understanding the mitigation value of forest protection in developed countries

Bibliographic Data

ID15544951
AuthorsBrendan Mackey (0000-0003-1996-4064, Griffith University, corresponding author), William R Moomaw (0000-0003-2690-2339, Tufts University), David B Lindenmayer (0000-0002-4766-4088, Australian National University), Heather Keith (0000-0001-5956-7261, Griffith University)
Year2022
Volume17
Issue5
Pages054028-054028
Publication date2022-04-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/ac661b
OpenAlexW4223634747
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited31

Meeting the Paris Agreement global warming target requires deep and rapid cuts in CO 2 emissions as well as removals from the atmosphere into land sinks, especially forests. While international climate policy in the land sector does now recognize forest protection as a mitigation strategy, it is not receiving sufficient attention in developed countries even though they experience emissions from deforestation as well as from logging of managed forests. Current national greenhouse gas inventories obscure the mitigation potential of forest protection through net carbon accounting between the fossil fuel and the land sectors as well as within the different categories of the land. This prevents decision-makers in national governments, the private sector and civil society having access to all the science-based evidence needed to evaluate the merits of all mitigation strategies. The consequences of net carbon accounting for global policy were investigated by examining annual inventory reports of four high forest cover developed countries (Australia, Canada, USA, and Russia). Net accounting between sectors makes a major contribution to meeting nationally determined contributions with removals in Forest Land offsetting between 14% and 38% of the fossil fuel emissions for these countries. Analysis of reports for Australia at a sub-national level revealed that the State of Tasmania delivered negative emissions due to a change in forest management—a large and rapid drop in native forest logging—resulting in a mitigation benefit of ∼22 Mt CO 2 -e yr –1 over the reported period 2011/12–2018/19. This is the kind of outcome required globally to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal. All CO 2 emissions from, and atmospheric removals into, forest ecosystem carbon stocks now matter and should be counted and credited to achieve the deep and rapid cuts in emissions needed over the coming decades. Accounting and reporting systems therefore need to show gains and losses of carbon stocks in each reservoir. Changing forest management in naturally regenerating forests to avoid emissions from harvesting and enabling forest regrowth is an effective mitigation strategy that can rapidly reduce anthropogenic emissions from the forest sector and simultaneously increase removals of CO 2 from the atmosphere

Business · Carbon accounting · Climate change · Climate change mitigation · Deforestation (computer science · Economics · Environmental protection · Environmental resource management · Geography · Greenhouse gas · Illegal logging · Logging · Natural resource economics · Economic and Environmental Valuation · Environmental Impact and Sustainability · Environmental Science · Forest Management and Policy · Forestry