Forest Carbon Sequestration: Some Issues for Forest Investments

A major problem being faced by human society is that the global temperature is believed to be rising due to human activity that releases carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, i.e., global warming. The major culprit is thought to be fossil fuel burning, which is releasing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The problem of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide can be addressed a number of ways. One of these is forestry and forest management. This paper examines a number of current issues related to mitigating the global warming problem through forestry. First, the overall carbon cycle is described, and the potential impact of forests on the buildup of atmospheric carbon is examined. A major focus is the means by which forests and forest management can contribute to the sequestration of carbon. The potential role of forests and forestry in sequestrating carbon to reduce the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is now well recognized. A number of alternative approaches to utilizing forestry and forest management for carbon sequestration are examined. These include forest protection; the management of forests for carbon for joint products, i.e., the management of forests to generate both carbon and timber as products; the establishment of plantation forests dedicated to carbon sequestration; and increased production of wood products. Replacing other materials with wood will sequester carbon while reducing energy requirements, thereby reducing carbon emissions. Studies examining the costs of carbon sequestration using forestry are also discussed. The recent Kyoto Protocol (K.P.) explicitly recognizes certain forestry activities as “certifiable” for sequestration credits. But some definitions and aspects of carbon sequestration through forestry were left incomplete or inadequately defined by the Protocol. Furthermore, the KP has changed due to the recent withdrawal of the US for the Protocol (although not from the Kyoto Process). Nevertheless, further clarification is necessary to understand the full potential and set of opportunities from forestry both within the framework of the Protocol and more generally. Alternative types of vehicles for sequestration credits are discussed below,m both within and outside the context of the KP , and their advantages and disadvantages in terms of periods covered and liability are also examined. Finally, some ongoing real-world activities utilizing forestry specifically to sequester carbon are discussed.forests, carbon, sinks, sequestration, forest management, Kyoto Protocol

Macroeconomics and Forest Sustainability in the Developing World

Governments often use fiscal, exchange rate, monetary policy as well as export promotion tax increases, privatization, and land reform as part of comprehensive adjustments packages for addressing economic imbalances, balance of payments, and structural weaknesses. Such approaches, however, have come under heavy criticism for failing to recognize the social and environmental costs associated with them. Critics have argued that economic growth, trade liberalization, and increased primary product exports increase pressure on many sectors, including the agricultural and forestry land use sectors. This paper examines a number of these types of external shocks. This paper makes two arguments. First, from a theoretical economic perspective, although in many cases structural adjustment programs can be expected to affect the domestic forest sector, in other cases they will not. Second, even when there is an impact on the forest, it need not be detrimental to environmental and ecosystem values. A sustainable forest system needs to provide wood, local environmental products and services, and global ecological services, but individual forests can specialize in some of these.forests, sustainability, macroeconomics, trade, exchange rates, structural adjustment

Forest Service Vision: Or, Does the Forest Service Have a Future?

This paper maintains that the Forest Service (FS), as an institution, is in deep trouble. It argues that the FS today is an agency without a unique mission and without a supporting constituency. For the FS to be viable in the future it needs a distinct well-defined mission and a committed constituency. The distinct mission needs to be generally supported, or at least not opposed, by most of the American people. The constituency needs to be committed to the FS to the extent that it will provide major support in the Congress for FS budgets. The paper identifies some potential candidates for a mission for the National Forest System (NFS), e.g., as a biological reserve or as a provider of forest recreation. Another potential paradigm could be that of the Quincy Library Group, which apparently is going to receive separate Congressional funding and a unique management mandate for a set of national forests in California. This paper examines the feasibility of these missions and paradigms including budget and constituency support. Finally, there is the question of whether the FS has completed its useful life and if society would be better served by merging existing land management agencies into an integrated agency that can better provide for the coordinated management required.

Biotechnology and Planted Forests: Assessment of Potential and Possibilities

This paper addresses the potential impact of the introduction and development of biotechnology on planted forests. It includes a description of some recent innovations in forestry including the use of traditional breeding, and also more recent innovations involving biotechnology, including the development of clonal propagation and the use of modern molecular biology techniques. In addition to describing these innovations, the paper undertakes an assessment of their probable impact on future production of the forest industry, on the global timber supply, and on future markets for timber and wood products. The paper offers a description of recent innovations in tree breeding and biotechnology, including a discussion of innovations in agriculture that have promise for forestry. This is followed by a discussion of the current role of biotechnology in forestry and an assessment of the various types of biotechnological innovations that could be forthcoming in the next decade and beyond. Additionally, the paper examines the likely effects of biotechnology on the economics of forestry. An estimate is provided for the potential cost savings and/or value increases expected from the various innovations. Using these estimates, a quantitative assessment is made of global potential economic returns to the most immediate and major innovation, the herbicide tolerant trait. Additionally, estimates are made of the potential impact of cost savings realized from this type of biotechnology on future timber supplies in the global timber market.

Potential for Carbon Forest Plantation in Marginal Timber Forests: The Case of Patagonia, Argentina

With the advent of the Kyoto Protocol and its recognition of the use of forestry activities and carbon sinks as acceptable tools for addressing the issue of the build-up of atmospheric carbon, the potential role of planted forests as a vehicle for carbon sequestration has taken on a new significance. Additionally, the emergence of tradable emission permits and now tradable carbon offsets provides a vehicle for financially capturing the benefits of carbon emission reductions and carbon offsetting activities. In a world where carbon sequestration has monetary value, investments in planted forests can be made with an eye to revenues to (at least two) joint outputs: timber and the carbon sequestration services. The first section of this paper examines the Patagonia region of Argentina, as an example of an area where carbon sequestration values combined with timber values create financial incentives for creating planted forests, which could not be justified on the bases of timber values alone. The paper uses a present value approach to evaluate the costs and benefits of plantation forestry in a "representative" site in Patagonia. A basic timber harvest scenario is developed and then a number of alternative scenarios are examined. These introduce carbon as an additional product to be produced "jointly" with timber. The scenarios include alternative rotation periods, alternative prices for carbon offsets, and a brief examination of the effect of undertaking a specific silvicultural activity. In the second section of the paper the results of this analysis are considered in the context of a discussion of the various types of institutional arrangements that might be required to provide a market for the carbon sequestration services provided by the planted forests. The paper identifies, examines and discusses a number of potential institutional arrangements that exist or are under discussion for marketing carbon sequestration services. A number of problems that may arise with offset credits and some of the innovative institutions that may be created are identified and discussed.

Marion Clawson's Contribution to Forestry

Marion Clawson passed away in April 1998 at the age of 92. He was a giant in the field of resource and environmental economics who devoted the last decade and one-half of his professional career to forest and forest related issues. He produced over 30 professional books and hundreds of papers. This paper presents a broad overview of his career as an economist, with a focus on his work in and influence on forestry and forest policy. From the early 1970s through to his last professional book in 1983, and his final professional contributions in the mid 1990s, Clawson devoted most of his professional efforts to forest issues. His influence on forests and forest policy was substantial, especially in the context of public policy toward America's publicly owned forested lands. He served as an external critic of the Forest Service, regularly calling for greater attention to be given to issues of economic efficiency in the management of public lands. His influence was probably greatest during the period from the early 1970s, when his service on the President's Advisory Panel on Timber and the Environment stimulated his interest in forestry, through the mid 1980s. During this period he authored several books on forestry and a number of influential articles.

Carbon Neutrality and Bioenergy: A Zero-Sum Game?

Biomass, a renewable energy source, has been viewed as “carbon neutral”—that is, its use as energy is presumed not to release net carbon dioxide. However, this assumption of carbon neutrality has recently been challenged. In 2010 two letters were sent to the Congress by eminent scientists examining the merits—or demerits—of biomass for climate change mitigation. The first, from about 90 scientists (to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, from W.H. Schlesinger et al. May 17, 2010), questioned the treatment of all biomass energy as carbon neutral, arguing that it could undermine legislative emissions reduction goals. The second letter, submitted by more than 100 forest scientists (to Barbara Boxer et al. from Bruce Lippke et al. July 20, 2010), expressed concern over equating biogenic carbon emissions with fossil fuel emissions, as is contemplated in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tailoring Rule. It argued that an approach focused on smokestack emissions, independent of the feedstocks, would encourage further fossil fuel energy production, to the long-term detriment of the atmosphere. This paper attempts to clarify and, to the extent possible, resolve these differences.carbon neutrality, biomass, wood biomass, bioenergy, carbon dioxide, feedstock, energy, alternative fuel, rational expectations

Forest Carbon Sinks: European Union, Japanese, and Canadian Approaches

This report compares the approaches of the governments of Japan, Canada, and the European Union member countries toward using carbon sinks to meet their respective Kyoto Protocol carbon reduction targets. Various policies have been proposed by which governments can sequester carbon by promoting afforestation and reforestation, slowing deforestation, and undertaking forest management activities under Articles 3.3 and 3.4. At this time, carbon emissions reduction programs are still under development, both within individual countries and within the context of the protocol. Although some of the details have been worked out, concrete definitions are often still lacking, especially as regards impermanence of forests, additionality, leakage, and socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Japan appears most likely to rely most heavily on forest and biological sinks to meet its Kyoto targets. For Canada, sinks are likely to play a rather modest role. For the EU, the role of sinks is likely to be even smaller, with sinks playing no role for some EU countries (including Sweden, our case study country). However, the final decisions have not yet been made for any of these countries, and the actual role of sinks remains to be determined.Climate, Sinks, Kyoto Protocol, Forestry. Canada, Japan, European Union

Timber Supply Model 96: A Global Timber Supply Model with a Pulpwood Component

This study involves an update of our earlier Timber Supply Model, which was fully developed in our book, The Adequacy Of Global Timber Supply by Sedjo and Lyon (1990), published by Resources for the Future. The new version, called Timber Supply Model 1996 (TSM96), uses an economic market supply/demand approach to project an intertemporal time path of the world's price and output level of industrial wood. As did the original TSM, the TSM96 provides projections of the time path of the equilibrium output levels of the several regions into which the world has been subdivided. A major new feature of TSM96 is that industrial wood, treated as homogeneous in the earlier study, has be subdivided into two different wood types — pulpwood and solidwood. The supply of these two commodities is not independent. Rather they can be viewed as joint products in production. The study develops a base-case projection, which gives the authors' best judgment of the timber situation likely to develop over the next few decades. Over that period total industrial wood production increases from about 1.7 billion cubic meters to 2.3 billion cubic meters, an increase of about 35 percent, while global pulpwood production increases from about 700 million cubic meters in 1995 to about 1.325 billion in 2045. Pulpwood price shows a fairly substantial increase throughout the first one-third of the period, a more modest increase over the second third, and a slight decline during the last third. Solidwood prices are almost the inverse of pulpwood, declining over the first third of the decade, increasing slightly over the next third and increasing in the last third of the decade. Over the whole of the 50-year period overall price increases are 30 percent for pulpwood and only about 8 percent for solidwood.

Models Needed to Assist in the Development of a National Fiber Supply Strategy for the 21st Century: Report of a Workshop

This discussion paper reports on a Workshop on Wood Fiber Supply Modeling held October 3-4, 1996 in Washington, DC. The purpose of this discussion paper is to provide an overview of some of the modeling work being done related to timber supply modeling and some of the issues related to the more useful application of wood fiber supply and projections models. This paper includes brief presentations of three commonly used long-term timber projections and forecasting models: the Timber Assessment Market Model (TAMM) of the Forest Service; the Cintrafor Global Trade Model (CGTM) of the University of Washington; and the Timber Supply Model (TSM) of Resources for the Future. Also, issues related to the useful of the models are addressed as well as a discussion of some applications of other timber or fiber projection models. The usefulness of the models are addressed from both a technical perspective and also from the perspective of their usefulness to various model users.