What Would Happen Without Carbon Policy? reviewing and improving estimated baselines for tropical forests and sequestered carbon

Regulations such as the Kyoto Protocol aim to limit worldwide net carbon emissions and could be quite costly for Annex 1 countries. “Carbon trading” could reduce the costs of restricting emissions and has been included in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) proposals as one part of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. A carbon “baseline” (what would emissions be without any policy) is crucial in defining how much carbon trading should be allowed. Estimated forest-and-carbon baselines exist but major uncertainties remain about the relevant and appropriate estimation of baselines. We discuss what has been tried in the past, focusing upon land-use baselines (specifically deforestation paths). We consider challenges for small-scale sequestration project baselines and for larger-scale, regional/national carbon projections. Within the latter we highlight research from our team’s integrated project on Costa Rican forests.