Review of existing methods for carbon accounting / David Neil Bird, Naomi Pena, Hannes Schwaiger, Giuliana Zanchi

Bibliografía: páginas 31-33

List of abbreviations and definitions.. Executive summary.. 1 Introduction.. 2 Existing methods for carbon accounting.. 2.1 IPCC methodology.. 2.2 EU Renewable Energy Directive.. 2.3 Clean Development Mechanism methodologies.. 2.4 Voluntary Carbon Standard methodologies.. 3 Examples.. 3.1 Reforestation: Grassland to forest: South Africa - short rotation forestry.. 3.2 Forest degradation: Unmanaged forests to plantations: Malaysia - palm plantations on native forest.. 3.3 Forest management: Use of harvest residuals: Austria - collection of thinning and harvest residuals.. 3.4 Deforestation: Forests to cropland: Mexico - a mixed pine/oak forest converted to cornfield.. 4 Conclusion.. 4.1 Ideas for improving carbon accounting methods.. Endnotes.. References.. Annex - Parameters.. 1 Reforestation: Grassland to forest: South Africa - short rotation forestry.. 2 Forest degradation: Unmanaged forests to plantations: Malaysia - palm plantations on native forest.. 3 Forest management: Use of harvest residuals: Austria - collection of thinning and harvest residuals.. 4 Deforestation: Forests to cropland: Mexico - a mixed pine/oak forest converted to cornfield

Acceso en línea sin restricciones

Forests and forest land provide biomass that can be used to create forest-based bioenergy, whether through the establishment of energy plantations on non-forestland, use of existing forest resources or the use of residues that result from harvesting for non-bioenergy purposes. If produced in a sustainable manner, this bioenergy can have significant positive greenhouse gas benefits. However, past experience provides strong reason to believe that bioenergy development on a large scale will come at the expense of natural forests, either through direct conversion of forests to other land uses or through indirect competition between land uses. For example, bioenergy development may increase the demand for agricultural land, which may be converted from tropical forests. In this case, the net carbon balance would in most cases be highly negative. This paper first reviews methods for carbon accounting for forest-based bioenergy development employed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the EU - Renewable Energy Directive. The paper then uses examples to illustrate the benefits and shortcomings of the reviewed methodologies. The examples were chosen to highlight specific cases of land use change that may occur as a result of bioenergy development. These examples highlight the necessity of: • using Tier 2 or Tier 3 methods to calculate the carbon stock changes from land use changes affecting forests; • including dead wood and litter pools in the estimation of emissions, particularly when estimating emissions from deforestation and when the land use change involves only these pools; and • using a linear approximation over the first rotation and not a specific predetermined length of time, if a simplified forest carbon stock dynamics is to be used. eng

Disponible en línea

Adobe Acrobat profesional 6.0 o superior