Contribution of native forests to climate change mitigation – A common approach to carbon accounting that aligns results from environmental-economic accounting with rules for emissions reduction

Abstract

Comprehensive carbon stock and flow accounts integrated with economic information, under an environmentaleconomic accounting framework, provide a common approach for an information system to improve policymaking for climate change mitigation, sustainable development and forest management. The information system includes environmental and economic data, linkages between land use activities, their co-benefits, inputs to the economy and benefits for human well-being. Forest management was used as an example of application of the accounting framework because it has the greatest climate change mitigation potential of all land use activities. A case study developing carbon accounts for a forest region in southeastern Australia demonstrated the mitigation benefits of long-term carbon storage and sequestration in native forests. Using environmental-economic accounts helped identify policy and market instruments required to value ecosystem services of carbon storage and sequestration by applying a potential market price for carbon. We identified benefits of native forest protection as a carbon abatement activity, and compared this value to that of current forest management for timber harvesting that reduces carbon stocks. Both land uses provided similar economic contributions (approximately $12 million yr −1 , using a minimal carbon price), but native forest protection has additional co-benefits of improving water yield, tourism, recreation and biodiversity conservation. The accounts determine values of land use activities in physical and monetary metrics, and link these to beneficiaries of ecosystem services, so that maximum benefits for public good are identified. Quantifying ecosystem services of carbon storage (protecting stocks) and sequestration (increasing flows) in a native forest region, by applying a potential market price, broadens the policy options for mitigation activities. Adopting a comprehensive accounting system, and changing some of the definitions and rules under the Paris Agreement and national emissions reduction policies and markets, would allow the mitigation benefit of protecting native forests to be realised.

Direct measurement forest carbon protocol: a commercial system-of-systems to incentivize forest restoration and management

“…The long-term cumulative value of both sites, shown in Figs. 4B and 7 (e.g., Total revenue from mixed products and pricing), benefit landowner property valuation and reduces cost of delayed reforestation in-line with indices for value of timber land operations (Ferguson, 2018;Keith et al, 2019;Zhang, 2019). Figure 7 emphasizes the revenue potential of mixed forest carbon products incorporating features of project biodiversity, such as noted for AP by high Genetic Heat Indices of up to 401 (Hawthorne & Abu-Juam, 1995), and allocation of offsets for specific markets.…”

Trends in environmental accounting research within and outside of the accounting discipline

“…Campos et al, 2019). Other studies address the need for a standardised approach to account ecosystem services (Dvarskas, 2019) and discuss the adoption of a market price for carbon to value ecosystem services provided through carbon storage and sequestration (Keith et al, 2019). A third example is the recent topic burst around the SDGs bursting in 2018 and 2019 in non-accounting journals.…”

Pari̇s Anlaşmasinin Uygulanma Süreçlerdeki̇ Zorluklar: Büyük Fosi̇l Yakit Üreti̇ci̇leri̇ Örneği̇

“…(C2ES, 2018b). However, there is a problem about methods for collecting information including emissions data, sources, sinks, carbon budget, inputs by non-party stakeholders (IISD, 2018;Keith et al, 2019).On the other part, when the rules and procures are so strict, countries spend their efforts on reporting rather than reducing their emissions (Mehling et al,, 2018). Therefore, the reconciliation between reporting and implementing rules seem to be essential.…”