Forest carbon management and carbon trading: A review of Canadian forest options for climate change mitigation

Abstract Rising urban population throughout the world have boosted land use demand, intensifying pressure of ecological land resources linked with climate change. By incorporating risk into assessment, people can discourage excessive growth in megacity areas. Here, we propose a generalized analysis framework of ecological land conservation by devising a public goods game, which simultaneously considers population gravity and climate change along with interactions. Our method describes strategic conservation under the growth risk of urban boundary, where recurs across multiple rounds. We find that a compact and reasonable city with spatial structure will reduces erosion risk of ecological land and the lower costs of conservation, and higher its benefits. The conservation costs at the equilibrium do not increase with the degree of emphasis on the future, which show threshold effect. Ecological lands at the city boundaries have highest eroding risk, but rather pay a disproportionate amount of cost in this asymmetric game environment, which makes controlling erosion of ecological land less sustainable. Overall, our results suggest that implementing conservation strategies will efficiently reduce aggregate damages of urban growth and mitigate climate change, otherwise it may increase increases ecological land damages substantially.

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Improving Sustainability of the Environment in a Changing Climate

Advances in Environmental Engineering and Green Technologies - Handbook of Research on Climate Change Impact on Health and Environmental Sustainability ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-8814-8.ch016 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 327-346

Author(s):

Albert Arhin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Policy Making ◽

Sustainable Forest Management ◽

Local Level ◽

Benefit Sharing ◽

Weak Institutions ◽

Trade Offs ◽

International Climate ◽

Mitigate Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Community

The mechanism of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plus conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of carbon stocks is emerging as one of the current efforts and actions being developed by the international climate change community to mitigate climate change. This chapter highlights the potentials as well as the challenges of this mechanism to reduce forest loss and improve the health and sustainability of the environment. Main potentials include its resolve to make trees worth more standing than cut, the transfer of funds to support conservation efforts and a focus on delivering social benefits. The main challenges include the less attention on unclear tenure and benefit-sharing framework; weak institutions and the complex historical, political and structural interests which have allowed powerful groups to expropriate the forest resources and trade-offs that may arise during implementation. It then outlines four broad areas where researchers can make contributions in national and local level policy-making and interventions related to REDD+.

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False Starts

10.1093/oso/9780197567982.003.0002 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 19-62

Author(s):

Joseph Heath

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Policy Recommendations ◽

Policy Options ◽

Philosophical Literature ◽

Specific Policy ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Normative Dimension ◽

Second Wave

Despite the fact that there is an obvious normative dimension to the problem of anthropogenic climate change, environmental ethicists have so far not had much influence on policy deliberations. This is primarily because mainstream views in the philosophical literature have policy implications that are implausibly extreme. This chapter begins by considering the case of traditional environmental ethics, and the debate over anthropocentrism that has dominated this literature. Far from generating specific policy recommendations, this perspective has tended rather to generate only pluralism, if not outright skepticism about value. These difficulties led to the emergence of a second wave of environmental philosophers, who have attempted to grapple with the issues raised by climate change using the tools of normative political philosophy. Many of these frameworks have also failed to make a productive contribution because their deontological structure makes them poorly tailored to consideration of the trade-offs involved in different policy options.

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Exploring trade-offs between SDGs for Indus River Dolphin conservation and human water security in the regulated Beas River, India

Sustainability Science ◽

10.1007/s11625-021-01026-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Andrea Momblanch ◽

Nachiket Kelkar ◽

Gill Braulik ◽

Jagdish Krishnaswamy ◽

Ian P. Holman

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Flood Control ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Freshwater Ecosystems ◽

Low Flow ◽

Conservation Strategies ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Indus River ◽

Systems Model ◽

Trade Offs

AbstractIn India’s Indo-Gangetic plains, river flows are strongly altered by dams, barrages and water diversions for irrigation, urban supply, hydropower production and flood control. Human demands for freshwater are likely to intensify with climatic and socio-economic changes, exacerbating trade-offs between different sustainable development goals (SDGs) dependent on freshwater (e.g. SDG2, SDG6, SDG7, SDG11 and SDG15). Freshwater ecosystems and endangered aquatic species are not explicitly addressed in the SDGs, but only nested as targets within SDG6 and SDG15. Thus, there is high risk that decisions to advance other SDGs may overlook impacts on them. In this study, we link a water resource systems model and a forecast extinction risk model to analyze how alternative conservation strategies in the regulated Beas River (India) affect the likelihood of survival of the only remaining population of endangered Indus River Dolphins (IRD) in India in the face of climate change-induced impacts on river hydrology and human water demands, explicitly accounting for potential trade-offs between related SDGs. We find that the frequency of low flow released from the main reservoir may increase under some climate change scenarios, significantly affecting the IRD population. The strongest trade-offs exist between the persistence of IRD, urban water supply and hydropower generation. The establishment of ecologically informed reservoir releases combined with IRD population supplementation enhances the probability of survival of the IRD and is compatible with improving the status of relevant SDGs. This will require water managers, conservation scientists, and other stakeholders to continue collaborating to develop holistic water management strategies.

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Canadian boreal forests and climate change mitigation

Environmental Reviews ◽

10.1139/er-2013-0039 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 293-321 ◽

Cited By ~ 77

Author(s):

T.C. Lemprière ◽

W.A. Kurz ◽

E.H. Hogg ◽

C. Schmoll ◽

G.J. Rampley ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Carbon Storage ◽

Boreal Forests ◽

Fossil Fuels ◽

Wood Products ◽

Mitigation Strategies ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Mitigation Potential ◽

Systems Perspective ◽

Trade Offs

Quantitative assessment of Canada’s boreal forest mitigation potential is not yet possible, though the range of mitigation activities is known, requirements for sound analyses of options are increasingly understood, and there is emerging recognition that biogeophysical effects need greater attention. Use of a systems perspective highlights trade-offs between activities aimed at increasing carbon storage in the ecosystem, increasing carbon storage in harvested wood products (HWPs), or increasing the substitution benefits of using wood in place of fossil fuels or more emissions-intensive products. A systems perspective also suggests that erroneous conclusions about mitigation potential could result if analyses assume that HWP carbon is emitted at harvest, or bioenergy is carbon neutral. The greatest short-run boreal mitigation benefit generally would be achieved by avoiding greenhouse gas emissions; but over the longer run, there could be significant potential in activities that increase carbon removals. Mitigation activities could maximize landscape carbon uptake or maximize landscape carbon density, but not both simultaneously. The difference between the two is the rate at which HWPs are produced to meet society’s demands, and mitigation activities could seek to delay or reduce HWP emissions and increase substitution benefits. Use of forest biomass for bioenergy could also contribute though the point in time at which this produces a net mitigation benefit relative to a fossil fuel alternative will be situation-specific. Key knowledge gaps exist in understanding boreal mitigation strategies that are robust to climate change and how mitigation could be integrated with adaptation to climate change.

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Climate Change, Land, Water, and Food Security: Perspectives From Sub-Saharan Africa

Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems ◽

10.3389/fsufs.2021.680924 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

Author(s):

Samuel Appiah Ofori ◽

Samuel Jerry Cobbina ◽

Samuel Obiri

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Decision Making ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Average Temperature ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Perpetrators And Victims ◽

Mitigate Climate Change ◽

Water And Food Security

The current and projected warming of the earth is unequivocal with humans playing a strong role as both perpetrators and victims. The warming on the African continent is projected to be greater than the global average with an increased average temperature of 3–6°C by the end of the century under a high Representative Concentration Pathway. In Africa, the Sub-Saharan region is identified as the most vulnerable to the changing climate due to its very low capacity to adapt to or mitigate climate change. While it is common to identify studies conducted to assess how climate change independently impacts water, land, or food resources, very limited studies have sought to address the interlinkages, synergies, and trade-offs existing between climate change, water, land, and food (WLF) resources as a system in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The climate change and WLF security nexus, therefore, seeks to address this shortfall in literature and subsequently serve as a relevant source of information for decision-making and policy implementation concerning climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this study, 41 relevant studies were selected from Web of Science, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and institutional websites. We provide information on the independent relationships between climate change and WLF resources, and further discuss the existing inter-linkages between climate change and the WLF security in SSA using the nexus approach, with recommendations on how decision making and policy implementations should be done using the climate change and WLF security nexus approach.

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Energy Crops in Regional Biogas Systems: An Integrative Spatial LCA to Assess the Influence of Crop Mix and Location on Cultivation GHG Emissions

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12010237 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 237 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sinéad O’Keeffe ◽

Daniela Thrän

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Energy Crop ◽

Energy Technology ◽

Maize Silage ◽

Crop Cultivation ◽

Central Germany ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Biogas Plants ◽

Mitigate Climate Change

Anaerobic digestion producing biogas is an important decentralized renewable energy technology used to mitigate climate change. It is dependent on local and regional feedstocks, which determine its sustainability. This has led to discussions on how to alter feedstock for biogas plants without compromising their GHG (Greenhouse gas) saving, one particular issue being the use of Maize silage (MS) as the dominant feedstock. To support this discussion, this paper presents an integrated life cycle assessment of energy crop cultivation for 425 biogas catchments in the region of Central Germany (CG). The simulations for the CG region showed that MS as an effective crop to mitigate GHG emissions per kilowatt hour (GHGculti) was context dependent. In some cases, GHGculti reductions were supported due to higher yields, and in other cases, this led to increased GHGculti. We show that the often-proposed strategy of substituting one crop for another needs to be adapted for strategies which take into account the crop mixtures fed into biogas plants and how they perform altogether, under the specific regional and locational conditions. Only in this way can the trade-offs for lower GHGculti be identified and managed.

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Improving Sustainability of the Environment in a Changing Climate

Climate Change and Environmental Concerns ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-5487-5.ch025 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 486-505

Author(s):

Albert Arhin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Policy Making ◽

Sustainable Forest Management ◽

Local Level ◽

Benefit Sharing ◽

Weak Institutions ◽

Trade Offs ◽

International Climate ◽

Mitigate Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Community

The mechanism of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plus conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of carbon stocks is emerging as one of the current efforts and actions being developed by the international climate change community to mitigate climate change. This chapter highlights the potentials as well as the challenges of this mechanism to reduce forest loss and improve the health and sustainability of the environment. Main potentials include its resolve to make trees worth more standing than cut, the transfer of funds to support conservation efforts and a focus on delivering social benefits. The main challenges include the less attention on unclear tenure and benefit-sharing framework; weak institutions and the complex historical, political and structural interests which have allowed powerful groups to expropriate the forest resources and trade-offs that may arise during implementation. It then outlines four broad areas where researchers can make contributions in national and local level policy-making and interventions related to REDD+.

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Quantifying the impacts of defaunation on natural forest regeneration in a global meta-analysis

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-019-12539-1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Charlie J. Gardner ◽

Jake E. Bicknell ◽

William Baldwin-Cantello ◽

Matthew J. Struebig ◽

Zoe G. Davies

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Regeneration ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Well Being ◽

Natural Forest ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Conservation Strategies ◽

Natural Forest Regeneration ◽

Mitigate Climate Change ◽

Carbon Stores

Abstract Intact forests provide diverse and irreplaceable ecosystem services that are critical to human well-being, such as carbon storage to mitigate climate change. However, the ecosystem functions that underpin these services are highly dependent on the woody vegetation-animal interactions occurring within forests. While vertebrate defaunation is of growing policy concern, the effects of vertebrate loss on natural forest regeneration have yet to be quantified globally. Here we conduct a meta-analysis to assess the direction and magnitude of defaunation impacts on forests. We demonstrate that real-world defaunation caused by hunting and habitat fragmentation leads to reduced forest regeneration, although manipulation experiments provide contrasting findings. The extirpation of primates and birds cause the greatest declines in forest regeneration, emphasising their key role in maintaining carbon stores, and the need for national and international climate change and conservation strategies to protect forests from defaunation fronts as well as deforestation fronts.

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