Comment Log Display

US Forest Protocol B Summary of Evidence

AB 32 Offsets Challenge B Public Comments on October 19, 2011

Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, as individuals and as volunteers
for Citizens Climate Lobby

Summary of Evidence that Proposed Compliance Greenhouse Gas Offset
Protocol for U.S. Forest Projects does not meet the AB 32 Integrity
Criteria

Standard in Protocol:
The proposed U.S. Forest Protocol would provide offset credits for
three different types of projects: reforestation, improved forestry
management practices, and avoided conversion of existing forests. 
Each project type fails to meet one or more of the AB 32 Integrity
Criteria described below.  (We incorporate by reference all of our
prior comments, including our comments submitted on Dec. 13, 2010,
Aug. 10, 2011, Sept. 27, 2011, Oct. 18 and 19.)

AB 32 Integrity Criteria:

A(d) Any regulation adopted by the state board pursuant to this
part or Part 5 (commencing with Section 38570) shall ensure all
of the following:
(1) The greenhouse gas emission reductions achieved are real,
permanent, quantifiable, verifiable, and enforceable by the state
board.
(2) For regulations pursuant to Part 5 (commencing with
Section 38570), the reduction is in addition to any greenhouse
gas emission reduction otherwise required by law or regulation,
and any other greenhouse gas emission reduction that otherwise
would occur.

(See AB32 at Section 38562(d).)

Evidence of Failure to Meet Integrity Criteria

1. Already Happening – rather than “in addition to” emission
reductions “that otherwise would occur:” All three types of
projects covered by the U.S. Forest Protocol are already happening,
without the added incentive of greenhouse gas offsets from the AB
32 program.

 
a. Numerous Ongoing Projects: The Climate Action Reserve (ACAR@)
operates a registry that includes projects that will be eligible to
apply for early-action credits for U.S. Forest Projects, including
all three types of projects allowed under the U.S. Forest Protocol.
 See CAR Registry website at
https://thereserve1.apx.com/myModule/rpt/myrpt.asp?r=111.  Some of
these projects began more than 5 years ago, before AB32 was
enacted.  As a result, it is clear that these projects were viable
without the offset incentive provided by AB 32 offset credits and
do not meet the AB 32 Integrity Criteria.

b. Preservation Organizations: Organizations whose stated mission
is the preservation of forest land have projects listed in the CAR
registry.  The Northeast Wilderness Trust states on its website
that A[t]he mission of the Northeast Wilderness Trust is to
conserve forever wild landscapes for nature and people.@  The
Northeast Wilderness Trust has at least two projects in the CAR
registry.  These projects are designated as CAR655 and CAR681.  The
Nature Conservancy states on its website that A[t]he mission of The
Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural
communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by
protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.@  The Nature
Conservancy has at least five projects in the CAR registry.  These
projects are designated as CAR680, CAR686, CAR696, CAR697, and
CAR699.  While it is understandable that these organizations would
like the additional income that may be provided by offset credits
to do their valuable work, it is impossible to determine which or
what percentage of their CAR projects exist solely because of the
extra funding that may be available as a result of the availability
of the CAR registry and/or the AB 32 offset credit payments.  The
very nature of these organizations and their claimed reason for
existence indicates that these organizations would undertake
projects of the type they have placed in the registry, and would
almost certainly continue to do so, without any greenhouse gas
(“GHG”) offset credit payments.  (See CAR Registry website
https://thereserve1.apx.com/myModule/rpt/myrpt.asp?r=111 and
Attachment 1, American Forests’ Tree Planting program website,
2011.)

2.  The Proposed Protocol’s Tests Will Include Non-Additional
Projects:  The proposed U.S. Forest Protocol includes three types
of projects: 
(1) reforestation projects, including:
(a) areas with less than 10 percent tree canopy cover for at least
10 years, and
(b) areas with a significant disturbance that has removed at least
20% of land’s above ground live biomass in trees, (Section 2.1.1,
page 9 of Protocol)
(2) improved forestry management practices, and 
(3) avoided conversion of existing forests.  
The procedures provided for each of these projects in the U.S.
Forest Protocol will result in issuance of offset credits for
non-additional projects.  

1.	Reforestation Projects:  As evidenced by the descriptions of
projects in Attachment 1, many projects are ongoing that meet the
criteria laid out in the proposed Protocol for reforestation. 
Projects are untaken to provide wind breaks, to reforest areas that
have been impacted by fire, drought and pests.  It will be
impossible to determine the percentage of projects that would have
occurred but for the incentive of the AB 32 offset credits. 

2.	Improved Forestry Management Projects: By its terms, the
proposed Protocol, allows any activity that is above “common
practice” in the relevant Forest Assessment Area to qualify for AB
32 offset credits.  This would appear to include even projects that
have been ongoing for some time.  Since this will always be a range
of management practices, any management practice that are “above
average” will quality for offsets and this will has the potential
to include a large percentage of what is already occurring in each
Assessment Area.   The Protocol=s reliance on the Acommon practice@
standard as the baseline for determining additionality means that
forestry management practices which are merely above-average will
be eligible to generate AB 32 offset credits.  By definition, an
average means that many already-existing management practices will
be credited as though they did not occur in the course of
business-as usual.  

3.	Avoided Conversion Projects: The project type relies on an
economic analysis. It requires project developers to document that
there may be a more profitable use to which a particular forest
area could be put.  This turning-the-knobs type exercise (to get
the answer you are looking for) will be speculative and subjective
and will not be objective verification or enforcement. 

Under these tests, it is clear that the proposed U.S. Forests
Project Protocol will necessarily include non-additional projects
that count activities that are ongoing and would have happened
without the AB 32 offset credit incentive.  However, it will be
impossible to know what percentage of the projects would have
happened with or without that incentive, give the nature of the
tests that verifiers and the Air Resources Board would apply.  As a
result, the proposed Protocol fails to meet the AB 32 integrity
criteria and should not be approved.
 

3.  Leakage completely undercuts the ability of avoided conversion
projects to generate additional reductions.

a. World Market Negates Additionality: Wood products exist in a
world market.  The supply of, and demand for, wood products
involves almost every habitable land area of the planet, with wood
products being shipped and traded on a global basis.  See, e.g.,
Global Trade Network website at http://www.globalwood.org.  Avoided
conversion of any particular tract or area of forest will in no
meaningful way affect either the supply of or demand for wood
products. Therefore, if any particular tract or area of forest is
preserved rather than cut, and the demand for wood products remains
unaffected, another tract or area of forest will be cut to supply
the demand for wood products.  This shifting of supply will negate
any GHG emissions benefit because there will be no net gain in
world-wide forest biomass and the attendant sequestration of
carbon.  The proposed U.S. Forest Projects Protocol completely
ignores this problem.  This sort of ASecondary Effect@ is supposed
to be taken into account and references are made to “Section O,@
but no such section appears to be included in the Protocol. (See,
e.g. Protocol at p. 27.)

4.  Impacts from Climate Change – Increases in Forest Death and
Wild Fires: Increased prevalence and future likelihood of both
Aforest death@ and forest fires as a result of climate change
creates such high risks of project failures that such projects fail
the integrity criterion of Apermanence,@ notwithstanding the Forest
Buffer Account created by the U.S. Forest Projects Protocol.  See
Attachments 2 and 3.   

5.  Subjectivity and Complexity of Standards will make
Additionality Unenforceable: Many aspects of the U.S. Forest
Protocol are highly subjective and are, therefore, both
unenforceable and would allow claimed GHG reductions or
sequestration which would happen anyway, without an offset
incentive.

The net result of the problems described above is that, if the
proposed U.S. Forest Projects Protocol is approved non-additional
projects will receive AB 32 offset credits.  This in turn will
result in California’s “capped” sectors emitting greenhouse gases
above the alleged “cap” on their emissions.  As noted in our
earlier comments, since the least additional projects will
generally be the cheapest, the flaws in the U.S. Forests Protocol
will open the door to non-additional offset credits that will
undermine the integrity of the AB 32 program.  The Protocol should
not be approved.

List of Attachments

1.	Tree Planting, by American Forests, www.AmericanForests.org,
List of ongoing U.S. projects, in partnership with various
organizations and U.S. federal agencies. 
https://www.etree.com/TreePlanting.aspx?cc=US&lang=en&bhjs=0&fla=0


2.	The Science of the Total Environment, Climate Change and Forest
Fires, March 4, 2000
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/forests/forests5.pdf


3.	NY Times, With Deaths of Forests a Loss of Key Climate
Protectors, by Justin Giller, October 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/science/earth/01forest.html?pagewanted=all