British Columbia's new Forest Carbon Offset Program : A protocol comparison
department or school: Science, Faculty of
department or school: Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for
data provider: DSpace
creator: Díaz, Joaquín Gutiérrez
issued: 2024-05-06T21:38:39Z
issued: 2024-04
description: Forest carbon offset programs are widely used for climate change mitigation globally. With about 9% of the world’s forests, Canada retains a significant potential for forest carbon sequestration as a nature-based solution to climate change. Since much of this forestland is contained within British Columbia (BC), forest carbon offset programs have become particularly relevant for BC’s carbon neutrality. However, the efficacy of these programs in offsetting emissions depends on three constructs: (i) the long‐term stability of carbon storage (permanence) (ii) whether offset emissions are shifted elsewhere (leakage), and (iii) whether additional emissions are truly reduced relative to a counterfactual baseline (additionality). A thoughtful accounting protocol that mitigates the challenges posed by these constructs is necessary to accurately quantify carbon removals in any offset project. Research to date has assessed the design and feasibility of previous versions of BC's Forest Carbon Offset Program (FCOP) and other North American protocols but it has not directly addressed the most recent FCOP version, nor compared it to the previous version. This study examines the effectiveness of BC´s carbon offset protocols using a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the first (FCOP 1) and the latest version of FCOP (FCOP 2). To accomplish this, I conducted a structured comparison of the two protocols in how they approach the key ideas of permanence, leakage and additionality. Quantitatively, I developed a spreadsheet model to implement FCOP guidelines, and calculated credits across the two protocol versions, for a hypothetical Improved Forest Management (IFM) project, modeled after BC's Great Bear North and Central Carbon Sequestration Project. Qualitatively, the most impactful changes were then discussed with reference to scholarly literature. Results included a 17.8% decrease in offset credit totals in FCOP 2, compared to FCOP 1, for the hypothetical project, mostly due …
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88234
note: BRITISH COLUMBIA´S NEW FOREST CARBON OFFSET PROGRAM: A PROTOCOL COMPARISON A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE in INTEGRATED SCIENCES by Joaquín Gutiérrez Díaz THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Vancouver April 2024 © Joaquín Gutiérrez Díaz, 2024 2 Abstract Forest carbon offset programs are widely used for climate change mitigation globally. With about 9% of the world’s forests, Canada retains a significant potential for forest carbon sequestration as a nature-based solution to climate change. Since much of this forestland is contained within British Columbia (BC), forest carbon offset programs have become particularly relevant for BC’s carbon neutrality. However, the efficacy of these programs in offsetting emissions depends on three constructs: (i) the long‐term stability of carbon storage (permanence) (ii) whether offset emissions are shifted elsewhere (leakage), and (iii) whether additional emissions are truly reduced relative to a counterfactual baseline (additionality). A thoughtful accounting protocol that mitigates the challenges posed by these constructs is necessary to accurately quantify carbon removals in any offset project. Research to date has assessed the design and feasibility of previous versions of BC's Forest Carbon Offset Program (FCOP) and other North American protocols but it has not directly addressed the most recent FCOP version, nor compared it to the previous version. This study examines the effectiveness of BC´s carbon offset protocols using a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the first (FCOP 1) and the latest version of FCOP (FCOP 2). To accomplish this, I conducted a structured comparison of the two protocols in how they approach the key ideas of permanence, leakage and additionality. Quantitatively, I developed a spreadsheet model to implement FCOP guidelines, and calculated credits across the two protocol versions, for a hypothetical Improved Forest Management (IF…
has type: Graduating Project
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0442327
language: eng
peer review status: Unreviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Undergraduate
is part of: University of British Columbia. ENVR 449
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88234