Land-use change, no-net-loss policies, and effects on carbon dioxide removals
David N Wear, Matthew Wibbenmeyer · 2024
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Description
David N Wear and Matthew Wibbenmeyer model how land-use change in the United States affects the carbon that forests pull from the air. That removal is a key brake on warming, and it is already fading as forests age and land shifts. Policy ideas include planting more forest, sparing existing forest, and no-net-loss rules that trade one for the other.
Their key finding is about accounting. A common model that nets gains against losses understates the damage of land change by more than half. Counting gains and losses separately shows planting gains lag clearing losses in every region. Over forty-five years, no-net-loss swaps still leave the country removing less carbon. Sparing forest, they estimate, can deliver up to twice the benefit of planting. The authors say the choice needs cost analysis, but the accounting fix comes first.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | David N Wear, Matthew Wibbenmeyer |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 44 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |