Evolutions in Improved Forest Management baselines; or why VM0045 is the best carbon protocol.
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Here I talk about the thinking behind most IFM baseline protocols, how they stem from flawed thinking, and why Verra and The Nature Conservancy's new IFM protocol is one of the most sensible on the market today.
Hi Elias, I appreciate the shortfalls of some carbon crediting methodologies currently being used in operational settings (ACR + VCS REDD projecs specifically). When looking at VM0045, the methodology says that example project activities include reducing timber harvest levels or deferring timber harvest. This seems similar to the VM0012 methodology. How does the baseline scenario in VM0045 accurately capture these harvest decreases or deferrals? I am having difficulty understanding how the national forest inventory plots can be used to accurately project carbon stocks in a reduced timber harvest project scenario.
1:44 Farmer Joe COULD obliterate his forest with a nuclear warhead. Just because he hasn't yet doesn't mean he won't.
Well right here is the disconnect for most people. We need to model what Farmer Joe probabilistically WOULD do, not what he COULD do.
Otherwise in any system where there are many Farmer Joes we'll be assuming that all of them are going to cut their trees because they could. That will lead us to conclude that everybody on the whole landscape was a heartbeat away from cutting all their trees down, which just isn't the reality. And of course that means we're handing out WAY more carbon credits annually than the amount of carbon that we're actually protecting.
At the protocol level, it ends up looking fraudulent because landscape level forestry doesn't mimic everyone maximizing net present value off their land. Statistically speaking, even if Farmer Joe COULD cut his trees next year, if he hasn't been managing his land commercially in the past then he's less likely to cut than someone who has.
So there are two ways to go about this problem. We can either spend a lot of time trying to find exactly which farmers were actually about to cut their trees (discrete rare event prediction), or we can do some narrowing down and treat it like a probabilistic problem and not pay Farmer Joe for every tree.
The problem is the exact same in the medical industry. Every person has the potential to catch cancer. If we were to do what the ACR is doing right now, and give everyone who COULD get cancer full attention, we'd have to devote a massive amount of resources towards screening the whole population with expensive CT scans. That's just not a reasonable approach.
So how do we find out who's most likely to get cancer so that we can devote resources properly to them? We can model which populations are most susceptible and give them the expensive treatment, or we could give everyone cheaper screenings, or we can do some combination of both. But one thing that we should NOT be doing is giving everyone in the country annual CT scans (or assuming that every landowner who could cut their trees down next year would have).
But if they compare a plot to a "very similar plot" could they not choose a "not so similar plot" and claim then that they have more carbon than in the "very similar plot" ?
Thanks love your videos
Amazing video! A great summation of a very complex issue. Where can you point me to learn more about the environmental transgressions of TNC?
A fair number of people have written about it at this point, but it all came to light in the public eye with this article:
www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-nature-conservancy-carbon-offsets-trees/#xj4y7vzkg
Essentially, they're enrolling land that's been protected for decades (or centuries!), and claiming that if not for the project the trees would have been clearcut. It's wildly unethical and they're taking false responsibility for millions of tonnes of CO2. Although they changed their practices for future projects, their old projects are still on the books and earning thousands (millions?) of fake credits per year.
@@eliasayrey5188 lol the nature conservancy isn't evil (though I know not every joke in your video is meant to be taken literally). It's a "non profit" (whatever that means) operating in a capitalist system that has deceived the public and made money off of it
What source do you have to support the statement that their C footprint is larger than that of oil companies?
Hi Elias, I just learned about you and your channel through the popping article from Guardian. I'm a budding conservation scientist, about to take on internship for my MSc on a carbon offsetting project startup very soon... So I'm quite shocked and scared about what I'm about to partake on.... I haven't been deep into the VMs but of course I have to learn some of them... I tried looking into the VM0045 and quite stunned it says 'national forest inventories'. In SE Asia, this seems not too credible?? I don't know if you know much about this part of the world haha but what's your thoughts?
Hi! VM0045 is a protocol that can only be used in the United States for now. Although it could one day be expanded to other countries with good national forest inventories. There are definitely countries in SE Asia where the concept would work well, like the Philippines.
@@eliasayrey5188 that makes sense. Personally, not too sure about PH (I'm from PH haha, not based atm) but this is a good thing to look into for me. Anyway thanks for corresponding right away! Will follow your content more to learn! :)
@@eliasayrey5188 VM0045 is not limited to projects only in the US, it is limited to jurisdictions which have access to a national forest inventory or comparable forest inventory source at a sub-national level
As a bona fide, crusty old consulting forester, I can see potential for increasing biomass by treating invasives like bittersweet and kudzu. In my area invasives causing deforestation at an alarming rate. It’s been hard to understand how most of most of the projects I see function to increase any carbon at all. Even if they did, not all carbon throughout forests has equal value. I don’t see efforts to grow high quality forests that help address resource concerns being rewarded.
I love the "crusty old forester" and "farmer joe" stereotypes. Don't we all know a few of them?