As the United States moves to a low-carbon economy in order to combat global warming, credits for reducing carbon dioxide emissions will increasingly become a commodity that is bought and sold on the open market. Farmers and other landowners can benefit from this new economy by conducting land management practices that help sequester carbon dioxide, creating credits they can sell to industry to “offset” industrial emissions of greenhouse gases.

This guide is the first comprehensive technical publication providing direction to landowners for sequestering carbon and information for traders and others who will need to verify the sequestration. It will provide invaluable direction to farmers, foresters, land managers, consultants, brokers, investors, regulators, and others interested in creating consistent, credible greenhouse gas offsets as a tradable commodity in the United States.

The guide contains a non-technical section detailing methodologies for scoping of the costs and benefits of a proposed project, quantifying offsets of various sorts under a range of situations and conditions, and verifying and registering the offsets. The technical section provides specific information for quantifying, verifying, and regulating offsets from agricultural and forestry practices.

Visit the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions website for audio from the press conference announcing the book.
Read the press release announcing the book.

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University is a nonpartisan institute that engages with decision-makers in government, the private sector, and the nonprofit community to develop innovative proposals that address critical environmental challenges, with offices at Duke University and in Washington, D.C.

Zach Willey is a Senior Economist at Environmental Defense, a leading national nonprofit organization that links science, economics, and law to create innovative, equitable, and cost-effective solutions to society’s most urgent environmental problems. Willey specializes in developing economic solutions to greenhouse gas emission and natural resource degradation problems in terrestrial ecosystems. Bill Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, is former chief scientist of Environmental Defense and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

  

  

  

  

Foreword vii
Preface ix

Part I. Overview
1. Introduction: The Role of Landowners and Farmers in the New Low-Carbon Economy 3
2. The Process of Creating Offsets 10
3. Land-Management Options for Creating Offsets 22

Part II. Steps in Determining a Project’s Offsets
4. Step 1: Scoping the Costs and Benefits of a Proposed Project 39
5. Step 2: Determining Additionality and Baselines 46
6. Step 3: Quantifying the Carbon Sequestered in Forests 52
7. Step 4: Quantifying the Carbon Sequestered in Soil 64
8. Step 5: Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Manure 75
9. Step 6: Quantifying and Minimizing Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Soil 84
10. Step 7: Estimating Leakage or Off-Site Emissions Caused by the Project 91
11. Step 8: Verifying and Registering Offsets 99
12. Conclusion: Putting These Guidelines into Practice 107

Appendices
1. Key Factors to Consider in Developing a Sampling Strategy 111
2. Quantifying Inadvertent Emissions from Project Activities 115
3. Using Statistics in Quantifying Offsets 118
4. Calculating Levelized Costs and Benefits 125
5. Categorical Additionality and Barrier Tests 128
6. Using Periodic Transition Rates to Calculate Baselines 131
7. Typical Carbon Stocks in Forest Pools 136
8. Protocols for Measuring Carbon in Subplots 139
9. Using Stocking Surveys to Monitor Forest Projects 143
10. Determining the Density of Woody Materials 146
11. Correcting for the Degree of slope 156
12. Calculating Carbon stock and Changes in Carbon Stock 159
13. Adapting Biomass Equations from One Species to another 165
14. Developing New Biomass Equations 166
15. Using Stand-Level Equations 175
16. Calculating Changes in Carbon Sequestration When Soil Density Changes 176
17. Determining Mass-Specific Ratios 179
18. Calculating Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Manure 181
19. The Dynamics of Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Soil 184
20. Market Leakage and Activity Shifting 186
21. Land-Management Projects and Changes in Demand 187
22. Addressing Leakage from Forestation Projects 188
23. Using Regression Analysis to Calculate Elasticity 190
24. Guidelines for Auditing Greenhouse Gases 191
25. Verifying and Registering Offsets under the Kyoto Protocol 193
26. Choosing a Registry 196
27. Sample Field Protocol: Establishing Plots and Measuring Biomass in a Forestry Project 201

Notes 209
Bibliography 215
Index 223