Commercial forest carbon protocol over-credit bias delimited by zero-threshold carbon accounting

Marino, Bruno; Bautista, Nahuel

doi:10.1016/j.tfp.2021.100171

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Accounting needs to be improved as well. An analysis of forest carbon accounting indicates that the common carbon market mantra "plant a tree to save the atmosphere/biodiversity/world" is based on commercial forest carbon protocols that have overestimated the carbon trading value of forest carbon by about 2½ times for more than 2 decades (Marino and Bautista, 2022) In short, we consider that redefining market value is the key. An ideal, possibly utopian, scenario might be one where the market focuses primarily on improving and sustaining global environmental health and secondly on GHG emissions cutbacks (though the latter would be a significantly weighted factor).…”

Section: The Carbon Marketmentioning

confidence: 98%

Planetary bioengineering on Earth to return and maintain the atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels: Assessing potential mechanisms

Moore

Heilweck²,

Petros

2022

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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We are all familiar with the episodes in the deep time history of Earth that enabled life to emerge in such abundance. Episodes like the formation of a Moon large enough and near enough to cause tides in the Earth’s waters and rocks, a core of sufficient iron with sufficient angular momentum to generate a protective magnetosphere around Earth, and assumption of a planetary axis angle that generates the ecological variation of our seasonal cycles. The living things that did arise on this planet have been modifying their habitats on Earth since they first appeared. Modifications that include the greening of Earth by photosynthetic organisms, which turned a predominantly reducing atmosphere into an oxidising one, the consequent precipitation of iron oxides into iron ore strata, and the formation of huge deposits of limestone by calcifying organisms. The episodes on which we wish to concentrate are 1) the frequent involvement of marine calcifiers (coccolithophores, foraminifera, molluscs, crustacea, corals, echinoderms), that have been described as ecosystem engineers modifying habitats in a generally positive way for other organisms, and 2) the frequent involvement of humans in changing the Earth’s biosphere in a generally negative way for other organisms. The fossil record shows that ancestral marine calcifiers had the physiology to cope with both acidified oceans and great excesses of atmospheric CO2 periodically throughout the past 500 million years, creating vast remains of shells as limestone strata in the process. So, our core belief is that humankind must look to the oceans for a solution to present-day climate change. The marine calcifiers of this planet have a track record of decisively modifying both oceans and atmospheres but take millions of years to do it. On the other hand, humanity works fast; in just a few thousand years we have driven scores of animals and plants to extinction, and in just a few hundred years we have so drastically modified our atmosphere that, arguably, we stand on the verge of extinction ourselves. Of all Earth’s ecosystems, those built around biological calcifiers, which all convert organic carbon into inorganic limestone, are the only ones that offer the prospect of permanent net removal of CO2 from our atmosphere. These are the carbon-removal biotechnologies we should be seeking to exploit.

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Section: The Carbon Marketmentioning

confidence: 98%

Planetary bioengineering on Earth to return and maintain the atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels: Assessing potential mechanisms

Moore

Heilweck²,

Petros

2022

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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“…Reliable and credible multi-year NEE prediction models are also necessary, and require regular auditing, to justify whether a particular site is entitled to receive carbon credit payments (i.e., it is a verifiable carbon sink with cumulative NEE values across the seasons < 0. There are inaccuracies in net-carbon account balances reported for some forest sites, which can result in substantial over-payments under existing commercial forest carbon protocol (CFCP) offsets [89] . One issue is that some sites fail to accurately record soil efflux of carbon and ecosystem respiration.…”

Section: Economic and Climate Change Implications Of Nee Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Machine Learning and Pattern Analysis Identify Distinctive Influences from Long-term Weekly Net Ecosystem Exchange at Four Deciduous Woodland Locations

Wood

2023

Res. in Ecol.

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A methodology integrating correlation, regression (MLR), machine learning (ML), and pattern analysis of long-term weekly net ecosystem exchange (NEE) datasets are applied to four deciduous broadleaf forest (DBF) sites forming part of the AmeriFlux (FLUXNET2015) database. Such analysis effectively characterizes and distinguishes those DBF sites for which long-term NEE patterns can be accurately predicted using the recorded environmental variables, from those sites cannot be so delineated. Comparisons of twelve NEE prediction models (5 MLR; 7 ML), using multi-fold cross-validation analysis, reveal that support vector regression generates the most accurate and reliable predictions for each site considered, based on fits involving between 16 and 24 available environmental variables. SVR can accurately predict NEE for datasets for DBF sites US-MMS and US-MOz, but fail to reliably do so for sites CACbo and MX-Tes. For the latter two sites the predicted versus recorded NEE weekly data follow a Y ≠ X pattern and are characterized by rapid fluctuations between low and high NEE values across leaf-on seasonal periods. Variable influences on NEE, determined by their importance to MLR and ML model solutions, identify distinctive sets of the most and least influential variables for each site studied. Such information is valuable for monitoring and modelling the likely impacts of changing climate on the ability of these sites to serve as long-term carbon sinks. The periodically oscillating NEE weekly patterns distinguished for sites CA-Cbo and MX-Tes are not readily explained in terms of the currently recorded environmental variables. More detailed analysis of the biological processes at work in the forest understory and soil at these sites are recommended to determine additional suitable variables to measure that might better explain such fluctuations.

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“…When the light goes out, they are net CO2 emitters. Indeed, analysis of forest carbon accounting indicates that, because of this, for more than two decades commercial forest carbon protocols have overestimated the carbon trading value of forest carbon by about 2½ times [87]. Another negative aspect for expectations that tree planting schemes can make a serious contribution to amelioration of our atmosphere is that "tree numbers have declined to nearly half since the start of human civilisation and over 15 billion trees are lost on an annual basis" [88].…”

Section: Moore Et Al (2022c)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is also why we believe that this change in paradigm would transcend the current vogue for carbon accounting that integrates into the account all possible carbon flows, even those that do not contribute directly to sequestration. Good commercial economic practice this may be, but it ignores the basic biology of the biotechnologies it seeks to analyse and has led to inflation of the carbon trading value of forest carbon [87] and, in our view, critically underestimates, and undervalues, shellfish shells and the CaCO3 produce by planktonic calcifiers in permanent net carbon sequestration. Marine sediments already sequester a great deal of carbon.…”

Section: Solution For Today: Cultivate Shellfish On Industrial Scale ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Assessment of the Potential Value for Climate Remediation of Ocean Calcifiers in Sequestration of Atmospheric Carbon

Moore

Heilweck

Fears³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Today’s marine calcifiers (coccolithophore algae, Foraminifera [protists], Mollusca, Crustacea, Anthozoa [corals], Echinodermata) remove carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere, converting it into solid calcium carbonate (CaCO 3) which is stable for geological periods of time. These organisms could serve as a biotechnological carbon capture and storage mechanism to control climate change. Two criticisms made about this are: (i) ocean acidification has allegedly been shown to cause reduced shell formation in calcifiers; (ii) the calcification reaction that precipitates CaCO 3 crystals into the shells is alleged to return CO 2 to the atmosphere. In this review we assess the evidence concerning such criticisms and find reasons to doubt both. Experiments showing that ocean acidification is damaging to calcifiers have all used experimental pH levels that are not projected to be reached in the oceans until the next century or later; today’s oceans, despite recent changes, are alkaline in pH. Claiming precipitation of CaCO 3 during calcification as a net source of CO 2 to the atmosphere is an oversimplification of ocean chemistry that is true only in open water environments. Living calcifiers do not carry out the calcification reaction in an open water environment in equilibrium with the atmosphere. The chemistry that we know as life takes place on the surfaces of enzymatic polypeptides, within organelles that have phospholipid membranes, contained in a cell enclosed within another phospholipid bilayer membrane specifically to isolate the chemistry of life from the open water environment. Ignoring what is known about the biology, physiology, and molecular cell biology of living organisms, calcifiers of all types especially, leads to erroneous conclusions and deficient advice about the potential for calcifier biotechnology to contribute to atmosphere remediation. Net removal of CO 2 from the atmosphere by calcifiers is only achieved by the CaCO 3 stored in the shell, coccoliths, or foram tests that are left when they die. To capitalise on this requires a change in paradigm towards cultivating calcifiers for their CaCO 3 rather than their meat or other products. We conclude that the world’s aquaculture industries already operate the biotechnology that, with massive and immediate global expansion, can contribute to sustainably controlling atmospheric CO 2 levels at reasonable cost and with several positive benefits in addition to carbon sequestration.

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Commercial forest carbon protocol over-credit bias delimited by zero-threshold carbon accounting

Cited by 10 publications

References 86 publications

Planetary bioengineering on Earth to return and maintain the atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels: Assessing potential mechanisms

Planetary bioengineering on Earth to return and maintain the atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels: Assessing potential mechanisms

Machine Learning and Pattern Analysis Identify Distinctive Influences from Long-term Weekly Net Ecosystem Exchange at Four Deciduous Woodland Locations

An Assessment of the Potential Value for Climate Remediation of Ocean Calcifiers in Sequestration of Atmospheric Carbon

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