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What is the risk of overestimating emission reductions from forests – and what can be done about it?

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  • Till Neeff

Abstract

A high risk of overestimating emission reductions would be detrimental to the credibility of forest mitigation. But high-quality information on uncertainties in measuring emissions from forests is hard to obtain because of frequent shortcomings in uncertainty analyses. This paper aims to gauge what precision is achievable by examining data from several contexts (including data from 18 countries that have proposed jurisdictional mitigation programmes to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Carbon Fund). Countries reported random uncertainties in measuring forest carbon density (mostly 5–15% of the mean at the 90% confidence level), forest areas and their changes (mostly 0–20% for forest loss and forest degradation and 10–40% for forest gain), and greenhouse gas emissions (mostly 10–30%). It follows that uncertainties may be substantial in estimating emission reductions from forests and land-use change, and that these uncertainties entail significant risks of overestimation. I propose discount factors (between 9 and 44%) to conservatively adjust emission reduction estimates and reduce the overestimation risk. The paper concludes by pointing out that uncertainties are much lower for aggregate emission reductions of several programmes than they are for individual programmes. Discounting individual programmes’ emission reductions could therefore lead to understating the mitigation contribution that forests deliver.

Suggested Citation

  • Till Neeff, 2021. "What is the risk of overestimating emission reductions from forests – and what can be done about it?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 1-19, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:166:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-021-03079-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-021-03079-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Watson, Charlene & Mourato, Susana & Milner-Gulland, E. J., 2013. "Uncertain emission reductions from forest conservation: REDD in the Bale mountains, Ethiopia," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 54192, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Daniel Plugge & Thomas Baldauf & Michael Köhl, 2013. "The global climate change mitigation strategy REDD: monitoring costs and uncertainties jeopardize economic benefits," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 119(2), pages 247-259, July.
    3. Johanne Pelletier & Jonah Busch & Catherine Potvin, 2015. "Addressing uncertainty upstream or downstream of accounting for emissions reductions from deforestation and forest degradation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 130(4), pages 635-648, June.
    4. Betha Lusiana & Meine Noordwijk & Feri Johana & Gamma Galudra & S. Suyanto & Georg Cadisch, 2014. "Implications of uncertainty and scale in carbon emission estimates on locally appropriate designs to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+)," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 757-772, August.
    5. Giacomo Grassi & Sandro Federici & Frédéric Achard, 2013. "Implementing conservativeness in REDD+ is realistic and useful to address the most uncertain estimates," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 119(2), pages 269-275, July.
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