What is driving the move to storage of carbon in forest, crop and agricultural land?
In effect, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 is still fundamentally driving changes in how we think about greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. With the recent agreement forged in Bonn, Germany in July, 2001 it is now a much higher probability that carbon emissions trading will emerge, and that storage for carbon could indeed become a marketable commodity. We may now see a market in carbon stored in the soil and plants, a “carbon sequestration credits” market, or the “carbon offsets” market. In all cases, we perhaps can think of such mechanisms as involving “cap and trade,” that is, working together to place a cap on carbon emissions will give the basis for a market, actually several different kinds of carbon markets. Also, if markets do not emerge, perhaps government payments would become available based on the mechanism of “baseline and emissions credits,” i.e., wherein payments might be made for reducing emissions below some baseline and for increasing the amount of carbon stored. We
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- What is driving the move to storage of carbon in forest, crop and agricultural land?
