Addressing Leakage in a Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Offsets Program for Forestry and Agriculture

Mitigation Beyond the Cap: A Series of Briefs on Expanding Climate Mitigation Opportunities

Author(s): Aaron Jenkins, Lydia Olander and Brian Murray

Published: April 2009

download: policy brief (.pdf) >

Leakage is the phenomenon through which efforts to reduce emissions in one place simply shift emissions to another location or sector where they remain uncontrolled or uncounted. It occurs “whenever the spatial scale of the intervention is inferior to the full scale of the targeted problem.” The potential for leakage arises when rules, regulations, and incentives for action affect only part of the potential pool of participants or emissions sources. As complete coverage by a policy is difficult, leakage is a problem common to many policies.