Forest sector carbon offset projects: Near-term opportunities to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions

The Framework Convention on Climate Change separately recognizes sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and provides incentives to establish C offset projects to help meet the goal of stabilizing emissions. Forest systems provide multiple opportunities to offset or stabilize greenhouse emissions through a reduction in deforestation (C sources), expansion of existing forests (CO2 sinks) or production of biofuels (offset fossil fuel combustion). Attributes and dimensions of eight forest-sector C offset projects, established over the past three years, were examined. The projects, mostly established or sponsored by US or European electric utilities, propose to conserve/sequester over 30 x 106 Mg C in forest systems at an initial cost of $1 to 30 Mg C. Given the relative novelty and complexity of forest sector C offset projects, a number of biogeochemical, institutional, socio-economic, monitoring, and regulatory issues merit analysis before the long-term potential and cost effectiveness of this greenhouse gas stabilization approach can be determined.