Essay About Kyoto Protocol And Reference Year

Accounting of Forest Carbon Sinks
Accounting of Forest Carbon Sinks
Today, forests in the northern hemisphere are a sink for carbon dioxide (CO2) from the
atmosphere, partly due to changes in forest management practice and intensity. Parties of
the Kyoto Protocol had the option to elect to account for direct human-induced carbon (C)
sources and sinks from land management activities since 1990. The effect of age–class
structure of a forest landscape resulting from past practices and disturbances before the
reference year 1990 should be excluded, but methods for ‘‘factoring out the effects of this
age–class legacy on carbon emissions and removals are lacking. The legacy effect can be
strong and can even overwhelm effects of post-1990 management. It therefore needs to be
‘‘factored out, i.e., removed from the direct human-induced post-1990 effects. In this study
we examine how the contributions to forest biomass carbon stock changes of (1) past (pre-
1990) disturbances and harvest and (2) recent (post-1990) changes in forest management can
be differentiated in present and future observable carbon dynamics in managed forest
ecosystems. We also calculate the consequences of different accounting rules for the
magnitude and direction of accountable C stock changes in European countries in the
period 2013–2017.
Different accounting approaches are compared in terms of applicability and their ability
to provide incentives for management changes to increase carbon sinks and reduce carbon
sources. We demonstrate implications of the various ways of