Community forest management in Mexico: carbon mitigation and biodiversity conservation through rural development

Forest management is an important carbon mitigation strategy for developing countries. As demonstrated by the case of Mexico, community forest management is especially effective because it offers tangible local benefits while conserving forests and sequestering carbon. Community forestry receives minimal government support now, but the clean development mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol could leverage additional resources to promote the approach in Mexico and elsewhere. We argue that adequately designed and implemented, community forestry management projects can avoid deforestation and restore forest cover and forest density. They comprise promising options for providing both carbon mitigation and sustainable rural development. These kinds of projects should be included in the CDM.     

Optimal management of a forested catchment providing timber and carbon sequestration benefits: Climate change effects

Climate change is predicted to increase fire frequency and exacerbate water scarcity. The effect of these changes on the tree harvest decision in a forested catchment is investigated using stochastic dynamic programming, taking a stand of mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) in south–eastern Australia as a case study. We find that for a range of water and carbon sequestration values, it is optimal to cease harvesting in the absence of climate change. Whether it is optimal to do so under climate change will depend on the magnitude of the increases in fire frequency and water value. Potential increases in forest productivity also have a significant impact on the tree harvest decision.     

Community forest management (CFM) in south-west Ethiopia: Maintaining forests,biodiversity and carbon stocks to support wild coffee conservation

Community forest management (CFM) is increasingly recognised as a potentially effective way of maintaining forests, especially in the Global South. Despite the growing adoption of this approach, the results have been mixed and there is a need to explore both the ways in which a wider range of benefits can be obtained and how CFM can be implemented more effectively. New forest legislation on community forest management in the Southern Region of Ethiopia in 2012, alongside the development of a highly devolved method of CFM, provided a natural experiment for testing the effectiveness of this method as a way of maintaining forest and also supporting biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. The specific circumstances and details of the methods applied also provided an opportunity to compare this approach against other experiences of CFM to assess factors seen to be influencing success. This study was undertaken in an area of montane forest in south-west Ethiopia, which includes some of the remaining stands of wild Coffea arabica, and so it also sought to create supportive conditions for the in situ conservation of the wild coffee. Analyses of this approach to CFM over the six years show that the loss of forest was reduced to 0.18% per annum in the CFM managed areas compared to 2.6% per annum in the non-CFM forest, while biodiversity, in terms of species diversity, richness and evenness of distribution, was maintained in the natural forest managed under CFM. Carbon storage also increased in the natural forest managed under CFM. While the long-term results will only be seen after several decades, the findings show that the use of a highly devolved form of CFM, responding to felt needs and building up a community of practice were some of the positive influences which helped in achieving multiple impacts towards sustainable forest management and wild coffee conservation.     

The role of climate finance beyond renewables: demand-side management and carbon capture,usage and storage

Mobilizing climate finance for climate change mitigation is a crucial part of meeting the ‘well-below’ 2°C goal of the Paris Agreement. Climate finance refers to investments specifically in climate change mitigation and adaptation activities, which involve public finance and the leveraging of private finance. A large proportion of climate finance is Official Development Assistance (ODA) from OECD countries to ODA-eligible countries. The evidence shows that the largest proportion of climate finance for climate change mitigation has been channelled to the development of renewable energy, with a much smaller proportion flowing to other crucial forms of clean energy-related measures, such as demand-side management (DSM) (particularly sustainable cooling) and carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS). This forms the rationale and aim of this synthesis paper: to review the role of climate finance to develop clean energy beyond renewables. In doing so, the paper draws on practical policy and programme experiences of some donor countries, such as the UK, and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). This paper argues that a greater amount of climate finance from OECD countries to ODA-eligible fossil fuel-intensive emerging economies and developing countries is required for sustainable cooling and CCUS, particularly in the form of technical assistance and clean energy innovation.

Key policy insights

• Demand-side management (DSM) and carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) are underfunded in climate finance compared with the promotion of renewables.

• Climate finance for sustainable cooling, in particular, represents just 0.04% of total ODA, despite cooling projected to represent 13% of global emissions by 2030.

• Public investment in CCUS is limited at US $28 billion since 2007, despite the costs of meeting the Paris Agreement estimated to be 40-128% more expensive without CCUS.

• Additional climate finance for these sectors should not come at the expense of funding for renewables but should be complementary to it.

     

The Gordian knot of mangrove conservation: Disentangling the role of scale,services and benefits

Mangrove forests are among the most threatened tropical ecosystems. Their role as providers of important ecosystem services such as coastal protection, carbon storage and nursery habitats for economically important species is increasingly acknowledged. But mangrove destruction continues, and we might have to face the prospect of a world deprived of the services offered by mangrove ecosystems. Mangrove transformation and destruction is often caused by mismatches in mangrove system management. These root in interests that focus on selected ecosystem services only, but also result from a problem of fit between the spatial scales at which ecosystem services are provided, and those at which their benefits are realized. We argue that a combination of the ecosystem services concept with a careful approach to the issue of scales will help to overcome these problems and improve the management of mangrove systems. Drawing on two case studies from Indonesia and Brazil, we illustrate the relevance of our findings for different ecosystem services.     

Demand for biodiversity protection and carbon storage as drivers of global land change scenarios

Many global land change scenarios are driven by demand for food, feed, fiber, and fuel. However, novel demands for other ecosystem services give rise to nexus issues and can lead to different land system changes. In this paper we explore the effects of including multiple different demands in land change scenarios. Our reference scenario is driven by demands for crop production, ruminant livestock production, and provisioning of built-up area. We then compare two alternative scenarios with additional demands for terrestrial carbon storage and biodiversity protection, respectively. These scenarios represent possible implementations of globally agreed policy targets. The simulated land system change scenarios are compared in terms of changes in cropland intensity and area, as well as tree and grassland area changes. We find that the carbon and biodiversity scenarios generally result in greater intensification and less expansion of cropland, with the biodiversity scenario showing a stronger intensification effect. However, the impact of setting the targets impacts different world regions in different ways. Overall, both scenarios result in a larger tree area compared to the reference scenario, while the carbon scenario also yields more grassland area. The land systems simulated while accounting for these additional demand types show strong patterns of specialization and spatial segregation in the provisioning of goods and services in different world regions. Our results indicate the relevance of including demands for multiple different goods and services in global land change assessments.     

The benefits of climate change mitigation in integrated assessment models: the role of the carbon cycle and climate component

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are an important tool to compare the costs and benefits of different climate policies. Recently, attention has been given to the effect of different discounting methods and damage estimates on the results of IAMs. One aspect to which little attention has been paid is how the representation of the climate system may affect the estimated benefits of mitigation action. In that respect, we analyse several well-known IAMs, including the newest versions of FUND, DICE and PAGE. Given the role of IAMs in integrating information from different disciplines, they should ideally represent both best estimates and the ranges of anticipated climate system and carbon cycle behaviour (as e.g. synthesised in the IPCC Assessment reports). We show that in the longer term, beyond 2100, most IAM parameterisations of the carbon cycle imply lower CO₂ concentrations compared to a model that captures IPCC AR4 knowledge more closely, e.g. the carbon-cycle climate model MAGICC6. With regard to the climate component, some IAMs lead to much lower benefits of mitigation than MAGICC6. The most important reason for the underestimation of the benefits of mitigation is the failure in capturing climate dynamics correctly, which implies this could be a potential development area to focus on.     

Renewable energy vs. biodiversity: Policy conflicts and the future of nature conservation

The European Union's (EU) network of nature conservation areas – Natura 2000 – covers almost 18% of EU territory, and is subject to strict legal protection, which is enforced by the European Commission, a supranational authority. Given the Natura 2000 network's size, conflicts between Natura 2000 and renewable energy projects are inevitable, particularly as countries push to meet their 2020 energy and emissions reduction targets by pursuing more – and larger – renewable energy projects. Focusing on two cases in the renewable energy sector – a hydroelectric dam in Portugal's Sabor valley, and a large tidal barrage in the UK's Severn estuary – this article shows that the EU's strict biodiversity protection regime could necessitate the rejection of many large renewable energy projects. That is, it may not be possible as a matter of EU law for national authorities to grant permission for such projects. The potential for such difficulties will be shown to be highly visible to policymakers, and could, this article argues, trigger negative impacts in terms of the rule of law, and negative feedbacks on nature conservation policies in the EU and, by way of precedent, globally. The legal issues presented here should not, this article argues, be regarded as insurmountable problems, nor as a trigger for reforms aimed at weakening biodiversity protections. Rather, these issues are better regarded as an opportunity for an open, informed, global debate regarding the relationship between biodiversity and climate change policies, and the hierarchy, if any, between them.     

Floods and livelihoods: The impact of changing water resources on wetland agro-ecological production systems in the Tana River Delta,Kenya

Wetlands are highly dynamic and productive systems that have been under increased pressure from changes in land use and water management strategies. In Eastern Africa, wetlands provide resources at multiple spatial and temporal levels through farming, fishing, livestock ownership and a host of other ecosystem services that sustain the local economy and individual livelihoods. As part of a broader effort to describe future development scenarios for East African coastal wetlands, this qualitative study focuses on understanding the processes by which river water depletion has affected local food production systems in Kenya's Tana River Delta over the past 50 years, and how this situation has impacted residents’ livelihoods and well-being. Interviews performed in six villages among various ethnic groups, geographical locations and resource profiles indicated that the agro-ecological production systems formerly in place were adapted to the river's dynamic flooding patterns. As these flooding patterns changed, the local population diversified and abandoned or adopted various farming, fishing and livestock-rearing techniques. Despite these efforts, the decrease in water availability affected each subcomponent of the production systems under study, which led to their collapse in the 1990s. Water depletion negatively impacted local human well-being through the loss of food security. The current study provides a detailed account of the dynamics of agro-ecological production systems facing the effects of river water depletion in a wetland-associated environment in Sub-Saharan Africa.     

On the coattails of climate? Opportunities and threats of a warming Earth for biodiversity conservation

The relationship between climate change and biodiversity was a central issue at the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In this paper we draw from participant observation data collected at COP 10, and related policy documentation, to examine how concerns about climate change are shaping the conservation policy landscape – in terms of the knowledge and rationales used as inputs, networks of actors involved, objectives sought, and actions proposed. We find that debates at the intersection of climate and biodiversity were overwhelmingly framed in relation to, or through the lens of carbon. Through a discussion of four core Climate-Motivated Responses, we illustrate how “carbon-logic”, and the initiatives that it generates, simultaneously creates threats to the objectives sought by some actors, and opportunities for the objectives sought by others. We situate our observations in the context of some of the historical dilemmas that have faced conservation, and discuss this current moment in the dynamic trajectory of conservation governance: a moment when decisions about conserving biodiversity are becoming entangled with carbon-logic and the market. In this case, while some actors seek opportunities for biodiversity ends by riding the coattails of the climate agenda, the threats of doing so may undermine the biological and social objectives of the CBD convention itself.     

Integrated land-use systems: Assessment of promising agroforest and alternative land-use practices to enhance carbon conservation and sequestration

Degraded or sub-standard soils and marginal lands occupy a significant proportion of boreal, temperate and tropical biomes. Management of these lands with a wide range of existing, site-specific, integrated, agroforest systems represents a significant global opportunity to reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Establishment of extensive agricultural, agroforest, and alternative land-use systems on marginal or degraded lands could sequester 0.82–2.2 Pg carbon (C) per year, globally, over a 50-year time-frame. Moreover, slowing soil degradation by alternative grassland management and by impeding desertification could conserve up to 0.5–1.5 Pg C annually. A global analysis of biologic and economic data from 94 nations representing diverse climatic and edaphic conditions reveals a range of integrated land-use systems which could be used to establish and manage vegetation on marginal or degraded lands. Promising land-use systems and practices identified to conserve and temporarily store C include agroforestry systems, fuelwood and fiber plantations, bioreserves, intercropping systems, and shelterbelts/windbreaks. For example, successful establishment of low-intensity agroforestry systems can store up to 70 Mg C/ha in boreal, temperate and tropical ecoregions. The mean initial cost of soil rehabilitation and revegetation ranges from $500–3,000/ha for the 94 nations surveyed. Natural regeneration of woody vegetation or agro-afforestation establishment costs were less than $1000/ha in temperate and tropical regions. The costs of C sequestration in soil and vegetation systems range from $1-69/Mg C, which compares favorably with other options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Although agroforestry system projects were recently established to conserve and sequester C in Guatemala and Malaysia, constraints to wide-spread implementation include social conditions (demographic factors, land tenure issues, market conditions, lack of infrastructure), economic obstacles (difficulty of demonstrating benefits of alternative systems, capital requirements, lack of financial incentives) and, ecologic considerations (limited knowledge of impacts and sustainability of some systems).The information in this document has been funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It has been subject to the Agency's peer and administrative review, and it has been approved for publication as an EPA document. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement for use.     

Leakage and spillover effects of forest management on carbon storage: theoretical insights from a simple model

Leakage (spillover) refers to the unintended negative (positive) consequences of forest carbon (C) management in one area on C storage elsewhere. For example, the local C storage benefit of less intensive harvesting in one area may be offset, partly or completely, by intensified harvesting elsewhere in order to meet global timber demand. We present the results of a theoretical study aimed at identifying the key factors determining leakage and spillover, as a prerequisite for more realistic numerical studies. We use a simple model of C storage in managed forest ecosystems and their wood products to derive approximate analytical expressions for the leakage induced by decreasing the harvesting frequency of existing forest, and the spillover induced by establishing new plantations, assuming a fixed total wood production from local and remote (non-local) forests combined. We find that leakage and spillover depend crucially on the growth rates, wood product lifetimes and woody litter decomposition rates of local and remote forests. In particular, our results reveal critical thresholds for leakage and spillover, beyond which effects of forest management on remote C storage exceed local effects. Order of magnitude estimates of leakage indicate its potential importance at global scales.     

Baroclinic instability: Energy transfer and the role of potential vorticity conservation

Abstract

In this note some aspects of the dynamics involved in the process of baroclinic instability are discussed using simple physical arguments. In particular, the connection between the requirement for unstable perturbations to release potential energy from the mean state and the conservation of potential vorticity is examined. It is shown how the conservation of potential vorticity results in perturbation phase propagation relative to the mean flow, which is a necessity for potential energy to be released from the mean state. Eady's (1949) problem is discussed as an illustrative example.     

Climate change and the transgenic adaptation strategy: Smallholder livelihoods,climate justice,and maize landraces in Mexico

Climate change will affect agricultural production by subsistence farms in crop centers of origin, where landraces are conserved in situ. Various strategies for adaptation to climate change have been proposed. In this paper we examine the prospects of what we call the ‘transgenic adaptation strategy’, i.e. the appeal to use transgenic seeds to adapt to climate change, through the lens of smallholder maize farming in Mexico. Landraces are the bedrock of maize production in Mexico. We consider how maize farmers may respond to climate change and the effects of those responses on crop diversity. In this paper, we argue that the promotion of the transgenic adaptation strategy is problematic for biological and social reasons. Smallholder livelihoods in southern Mexico could suffer a disproportionate negative impact if transgenic technology is privileged as a response to climate change. Agroecological and evolutionary approaches to addressing the effects of climate change on smallholder agriculture provides an alternative adaptive strategy.     

Governance of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS): accounting,rewarding, and the Paris agreement

Studies show that the ‘well below 2°C’ target from the Paris Agreement will be hard to meet without large negative emissions from mid-century onwards, which means removing CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing the carbon dioxide in biomass, soil, suitable geological formations, deep ocean sediments, or chemically bound to certain minerals. Biomass energy combined with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is the negative emission technology (NET) given most attention in a number of integrated assessment model studies and in the latest IPCC reports. However, less attention has been given to governance aspects of NETs. This study aims to identify pragmatic ways forward for BECCS, through synthesizing the literature relevant to accounting and rewarding BECCS, and its relation to the Paris Agreement. BECCS is divided into its two elements: biomass and CCS. Calculating net negative emissions requires accounting for sustainability and resource use related to biomass energy production, processing and use, and interactions with the global carbon cycle. Accounting for the CCS element of BECCS foremost relates to the carbon dioxide capture rate and safe underground storage. Rewarding BECCS as a NET depends on the efficiency of biomass production, transport and processing for energy use, global carbon cycle feedbacks, and safe storage of carbon dioxide, which together determine net carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Sustainable biomass production is essential, especially with regard to trade-offs with competing land use. Negative emissions have an added value compared to avoided emissions, which should be reflected in the price of negative emission ‘credits’, but must be discounted due to global carbon cycle feedbacks. BECCS development will depend on linkages to carbon trading mechanisms and biomass trading.

Key policy insights

• A standardized framework for sustainable biomass should be adopted.

• Countries should agree on a standardized framework for accounting and rewarding BECCS and other negative emission technologies.

• Early government support is indispensable to enable BECCS development, scale-up and business engagement.

• BECCS projects should be designed to maximize learning across various applications and across other NETs.

• BECCS development should be aligned with modalities of the Paris Agreement and market mechanisms.

     

Policy incentives for carbon capture and storage technologies in Europe: A qualitative multi-criteria analysis

In this paper, we compare different policy incentives for overcoming investment uncertainties that are typical for low-carbon technologies prior to their commercialisation, some of which may be attributable to market failures. The paper focuses on the particular case of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and conducts a qualitative multi-criteria analysis of different public policy support schemes for CCS demonstration to evaluate their suitability. The assessed schemes include mandatory CCS, emission performance standards and several different financial incentives (in addition to the European Union Emission Trading Scheme). Based on the available literature and on experience in the UK and Germany with promotion instruments for low-carbon technologies, the results of our analysis suggest that two alternative schemes, a CCS bonus incentive or a carbon dioxide (CO₂) price guarantee, perform best in comparison with the other assessed instruments. While they reduce the uncertainty of CCS investments in the face of low European Union Allowance prices, they also avoid significant adverse impacts on operational and investment decisions in electricity markets.     

中国森林乔木林碳储量及其固碳潜力预测

加强对我国森林碳储量和固碳潜力的研究,是制定中国增汇减排政策的重要依据,对我国国际气候谈判和全面了解森林碳汇潜力具有重要作用。利用我国第七次和第八次森林资源清查中各优势树种的面积和蓄积量数据,采用IPCC材积源生物量法（volume-biomass method),估算了我国森林（乔木林）碳储量和碳密度及其分布,分析我国不同省份天然乔木林和人工乔木林碳储量龄组结构特征;建立分区域、分起源主要优势树种的单位面积蓄积-林龄Logistic生长方程,结合我国森林2020年和2030年面积蓄积增长目标,预测我国乔木林2010—2050年间碳汇潜力。结果表明：第八次清查期间中国乔木林总碳储量为6135.68 Tg,碳密度为37.28 Mg/hm ²;天然乔木林和人工乔木林的碳储量分别为5246.07 Tg和889.61 Tg,分别占总碳储量的85.50%和14.50%。到2050年,中国乔木林和新造林的总碳储量和平均碳密度将分别达到11125.76 Tg和52.52 Mg/hm ²,与2010年相比分别增加81%和41%。分析结果表明中国乔木林有很大的碳汇潜力,将在应对和减缓全球气候变化中发挥重要作用。     

Show some enthusiasm, but not too much: carbon capture and storage development prospects in China

China is the world's largest carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitter and its energy system is dominated by coal. For China to dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next few decades, it must either replace most of its uses of coal with energy supplies from renewables and nuclear power or install demonstration-size and then scaled-up carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Currently, China is pushing ahead with increased investment in renewables and nuclear power and with demonstration CCS projects. This strategy is consistent with a country that seeks to be ready in case global pressures prompt it to launch an aggressive GHG reduction effort while also not going so fast that it reduces the likelihood of receiving substantial financial support from wealthier countries, as it feels it is entitled to as a developing country. At such a time, given the magnitude of the coal resource in China, and the country's lack of other energy resources, it is likely the Chinese will make a substantial effort to develop CCS before taking the much more difficult step of trying to phase-out almost all use of coal in the span of just a few decades in a country that is so dependent on this domestically abundant and economically affordable resource.     

Managing carbon in a multiple use world: The implications of land-use decision context for carbon management

Human land use contributes significantly to the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Changes in land management practices have been proposed as a critical and cost-effective mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting the storage of additional carbon in vegetation and soils. However many discussions of the potential for land use to mitigate climate change only take into account biophysical factors such as vegetation and land cover and neglect how the agency of land owners themselves affects whether additional carbon storage can be achieved. Unlike many potential REDD opportunities in developing countries, land management in the U.S. to enhance carbon sequestration would occur against a backdrop of clearly defined, legally enforceable land ownership. In addition, more than a third of the land surface in the U.S. is managed by federal agencies who operate under legal guidelines for multiple use and is subject to demands from multiple constituencies. We set out to investigate how the goal of enhancing carbon sequestration through land use is perceived or implemented in one region of the U.S., and how this goal might intersect the existing drivers and incentives for public and private land use decision making. We conducted a case study through interviews of the major categories of landowners in the state of Colorado, which represents a mixture of public and privately held lands. By analyzing trends in interview responses across categories, we found that managing for carbon is currently a fairly low priority and we identify several barriers to more widespread consideration of carbon as a management priority including competing objectives, limited resources, lack of information, negative perceptions of offsetting and lack of a sufficient policy signal. We suggest four avenues for enhancing the potential for carbon to be managed through land use including clarifying mandates for public lands, providing compelling incentives for private landowners, improving understanding of the co-benefits and tradeoffs of managing for carbon, and creating more usable science to support decision making.     

The role of culture and traditional knowledge in climate change adaptation: Insights from East Kimberley,Australia

Indigenous peoples offer alternative knowledge about climate variability and change based on their own locally developed knowledges and practices of resource use. In this article we discuss the role of traditional ecological knowledge in monitoring and adapting to changing environmental conditions. Our case study documents a project to record the seasonal knowledge of the Miriwoong people in northern Australia. The study demonstrates how indigenous groups’ accumulate detailed baseline information about their environment to guide their resource use and management, and develop worldviews and cultural values associated with this knowledge. We highlight how traditional ecological knowledge plays a critical role in mediating indigenous individuals and communities’ understandings of environmental changes in the East Kimberley region of north-west Australia, and how these beliefs may influence future decision-making about how to go about adapting to climate change at a local level.