Carbon Sequestration Inventory Issues - The Significance of Their Resolution for the Forest Products Industry, 1999 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Sergio F. Galeano

Georgia-Pacific Corporation

The Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change mandates the implementation of policies having to do with the promotion of sustainable forest management practices, thus recognizing the realities of carbon sequestration in forests. It also provides language in its text, albeit not clear, that defines the inclusion of changes in carbon stock, as debits or credits, due to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation. It also leaves open the inclusion of additional human-induced activities related to forestry and carbon sequestration. The author divides the discussion on carbon sequestration inventory issues into: a) issues as a result of the Kyoto Protocol language itself, and b) issues due to specific scientific and methodological complexities in the inventory of carbon sequestered and stored along the entire forest product life cycle.

The issues created by the language of the Protocol itself are discussed according to the threats they pose to the proper recognition of commercial forest management practices and their products. Each one of the most controversial articles of the Protocol on the subject is discussed separately and a more plausible interpretation is suggested. A strategy of inclusion, leading to the formulation of policies of inclusion, is advanced as a reasonable approach to the resolution of these issues and the building of necessary alliances.

The United States, and many other countries, possesses extensive inventory information on forests and wood products due to research work that has been conducted, for decades, by the U.S. Forest Service and other organizations. Legislation promoting accounting of the forest inventory at macro levels- national, regional has also advance the accuracy and reliability in inventory estimates. Private forest companies have also developed compatible and complementary inventory methods. The author reviews the carbon sequestration inventory approaches more discussed at the moment and analyzes each one in terms of practicality, relevance, accuracy and their role in promoting national interests.

The author concludes that for the purposes of the Protocol, the stage of development of domestic and international inventory techniques is sufficient to produce verifiable and reasonable accurate calculations, once the proper framework for changes in carbon stock is agreed upon. Domestic legislation could be a mechanism to clarify and complement the vagaries of the Kyoto Protocol language in the areas of carbon sequestration. There is a very small probability that the Kyoto Protocol language will be ever modified.