Title: Ask not what climate change can do for you, but what you can do for climate change
1Ask not what climate change can do for you, but
what you can do for climate change
- A proposal to the American Forest Foundation to
form a Carbon Offset Cooperative for PNW
Non-Industrial Private Landowners
2The AudienceAmerican Forest Foundation
- Oversees American Tree Farm System
- Long history- started in 1942 by the American
Forest Products Industry - Oversees 65,000 tree farmers who own gt85 million
acres
3Objective
To increase the net amount of carbon storage in
forests by using market-based incentives for
altering forest management.
4The Situation
- 36 forests in WA are private (60 are private in
United States) - 40 of NIPFs in western WA are found in low
density or urban settings, with threat of
land-use conversion - In Puget Sound watershed areas gt50 tree cover
declined from 1.64 million acres to 1.04 million
(37) from 1992-1997
5Situation
- Forests can influence atmospheric CO2 levels by
changing the amount of carbon stored in biomass
and soil. - Climate change can influence forests by changing
frequency, duration, extent, and intensity of
disturbances
6Fires
- Climate variability in past can be correlated
with disturbance frequency - Warm phase PDO statistically correlated with
increase fire propensity - PDOPacific Decadal Oscillation is a natural
climate variation that is associated with changes
in sea surface temperature and is most pronounced
in North Pacific
7Insect and Pathogen Outbreak
- Warm PDO and El Nino positively correlated with
drought - drought positively correlated with insect
outbreaks
8Future Climate Change
- In PNW
- Climate change models predict increase winter
temps and precip, which leads to decrease in
summer water availability, increase water stress - Increase in fires and insect and pathogen
outbreaks
9What is a carbon deal?
- Under Kyoto called an emission reduction credit
- Carbon dioxide emitter pays entity to have a net
reduction in CO2 - - increase in carbon sequestration
- - decrease in CO2 emissions
10Were not ratifying Kyoto so who cares?
- Industry believes emissions caps will eventually
be in place - Bush administration making progress in global
warming mitigation strategies - - encouraging GHG reduction and sequestration
projects - - increasing funding for carbon sequestration
policy and research - - increasing funding for Forest Stewarship
Program
11Who is paying?
- Greenhouse gas emitters
- - Power Companies (Seattle City Light)
- - Oil companies (Shell and BP Amoco)
- - Chemical companies (Dow, Dupont)
12Existing carbon traders
- Climate Trust in OR (partnered with Seattle City
Light)- buyer - eg. Paying Lummi Indian Tribe to buy 1,624 acres
forest land near Mt Vernon WA, capture 350,000
metric tons CO2 over next 100 years - Montana Carbon Offset Coalition
- eg. Getting paid for reforestation on Salish and
Kootenai tribal lands in Montana - Environmental Resources Trust
- Restore riparian areas on Rocking C Ranch in
southern OR - Restore natural prairie on Pine Creek Ranch in
eastern OR - Restore old growth Ponderosa Pine stands on
Ochoco Lumber Company lands in eastern OR
13Why a cooperative?
- Landowner parcels becoming increasingly smaller.
- Small trades not cost effective (by the time you
factor in cost of auditing, brokering, taxes etc
you need to have a guarantee of over 160,000 tons
CO2 to get any money to the seller1. - Also need enough land to cover risk from climate
variability and change.
14American Forest Foundation Role
- AFF will serve as the aggregator of forest
landowners and will be deal-maker - AFF will pledge x amount of CO2 avoidance where x
expected value taking into account probability
of disturbance
15Landowner Role
- Landowner will agree to alter forest management
plan and will calculate additional net carbon
stored (actually net CO2 avoided) - Must prove additionality!
- - increasing rotation age
- - changing site preparation (no sub-soiling or
burning) - - changing equipment/ transportation
16Economics- does this pay?
- For NIPFs can probably receive enough to pay for
project and annual property taxes - Will not be most economically attractive, but
small NIPFs often arent managing solely to
optimize money (or they would already have
developed land!)
17Case Study
- Not complete
- Comparing changes in carbon storage by increasing
rotation length and will calculate how much
ton/CO2 removed is needed to offset hypothetical
annual property taxes
18How is this going to help increase resilience to
climate variability and change in PNW?
- Direct- by reducing CO2 emissions
- Indirect- Landowners enrolled in cooperative will
need to actively plan for risk or increased
disturbances due to climate change
19For more information please see white paper
proposal