Land Publications
Stacking Ecosystem Services Payments: Risks and Solutions
February 2012
Healthy ecosystems provide many services to society, including water filtration, biodiversity habitat protection, and carbon sequestration. A number of incentive programs and markets have arisen to pay landowners for these services, raising questions about how landowners can receive multiple payments for the ecosystem services they provide from the same parcel, a practice known as stacking. Stacking can provide multiple revenue streams for landowners and encourage them to manage their lands for multiple ecosystem services. However, if not well-managed, it may also lead to a net loss of services.
The Potential Role for Management of U.S. Public Lands in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Climate Policy
January 2012
Management of forests, rangelands, and wetlands on public lands, including the restoration of degraded lands, has the potential to increase carbon sequestration or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions beyond what is occurring today. In this paper we discuss several policy options for increasing GHG mitigation on public lands. These range from an extension of current policy by generating supplemental mitigation on public lands in an effort to meet national emissions reduction goals, to full participation in an offsets market by allowing GHG mitigation on public lands to be sold as offsets either by the overseeing agency or by private contractors. To help place these policy options in context, we briefly review the literature on GHG mitigation and public lands to examine the potential for enhanced mitigation on federal and state public lands in the United States. This potential will be tempered by consideration of the tradeoffs with other uses of public lands, the needs for climate change adaptation, and the effects on other ecosystem services.
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potential of Agricultural Land Management in the United States: A Synthesis of the Literature (Third Edition)
January 2012 - by Alison J. Eagle, Lydia P. Olander, Lucy R. Henry, Karen Haugen-Kozyra, Neville Millar, and G. Philip Robertson
Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture
December 2011 - by Eva 'Lini' Wollenberg, Marja-Liisa Tapio-Bistrom, Maryanne Grieg-Gran, Alison Nihart
A new book features two chapters on reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions penned by researchers at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions—Brian Murray and Lydia Olander. The 456-page book reviews the state of agricultural climate mitigation globally and focuses on the design and implementation of activities to reduce emissions and increase carbon storage.
The impact of climate change on California’s ecosystem services
November 2011
Ecosystem services play a crucial role in sustaining human well-being and economic viability. People benefit substantially from the delivery of ecosystem services, for which substitutes usually are costly or unavailable. Climate change will substantially alter or eliminate certain ecosystem services in the future. To better understand the consequences of climate change and to develop effective means of adapting to them, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the links between climate, ecosystem service production, and the economy. This study examines the impact of climate change on the terrestrial distribution and the subsequent production and value of two key ecosystem services in California: (1) carbon sequestration and (2) natural (i.e. non-irrigated) forage production for livestock.
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Opportunities for Agricultural Land Management in the United States
October 2011 - by Lydia P. Olander and Alison J. Eagle
A number of on-farm management practices can help to reduce U.S. agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and generate significant increases in carbon sequestration. This brief summarizes the mitigation potential and the state of scientific knowledge for a wide range of agricultural practices in the United States and highlights key issues for implementing programs to incentivize GHG mitigation in agriculture.
Assessing Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Opportunities and Implementation Strategies for Agricultural Land Management in the United States
October 2011 - by Lydia P. Olander, Alison J. Eagle, Justin S. Baker, Karen Haugen-Kozyra, Brian C. Murray, Alexandra Kravchenko, Lucy R. Henry, and Robert B. Jackson
Approximately 6% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from agriculture. This number could be reduced through the use of on-farm management practices, such as switching to no-till, reducing fallow, managing species composition on grazing lands, and adjusting management of nitrogen fertilizer. Efforts are under way by government, industry, and others to incentivize such practices by creating new business opportunities or revenue for farmers and ranchers. This assessment reviews a wide range of agricultural practices and provides a roadmap and resource for programs and initiatives that are designing protocols, metrics, or incentives to engage farmers and ranchers in large-scale efforts to enhance GHG mitigation on working agricultural land in the United States.
Stacking Ecosystem Services Payments: Risks and Solutions
September 2011 - by David Cooley and Lydia Olander
A wide variety of incentive programs and markets have arisen to pay landowners for ecosystem services--the benefits that healthy ecosystems provide, such as water filtration, biodiversity, habitat protection, and carbon sequestration. This raises questions about whether landowners can receive more than one payment for ecosystem services generated from the same parcel of land, a practice known as "stacking." This paper outlines the different types of ecosystem service credits that can be stacked, and introduces a conceptual framework that can help policy makers and project developers determine whether a stacked project is meeting the objective of replacing or enhancing ecosystem services. It also identifies three specific circumstances in which stacking can lead to a negative outcome for ecosystem services and puts forward specific policy proposals to address these issues.
C-AGG, T-AGG, and M-AGG: A model for building collaborative actions and common understanding on agricultural GHG mitigation
July 2011
A new Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security working paper, led by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions’ Lydia Olander, provides an overview of three interrelated initiatives for greenhouse gas mitigation: the Coalition on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (C-AGG), the Technical Working Group on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (T-AGG) and the Market Mechanisms for Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (M-AGG). Working together, all three have aided in engaging U.S. scientists, farmers and policy makers in sharing information and better communicating to advance agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation opportunities and efforts. Similar networking approaches may be effective for accelerating progress in developing countries.
Managing Dependencies in Forest Offset Projects: Toward a More Complete Evaluation of Reversal Risk
July 2011
Although forest carbon offsets can play an important role in the implementation of comprehensive climate policy, they also face an inherent risk of reversal. If such risks are positively correlated across projects, it can affect the integrity of larger project portfolios and potentially the entire offsets program. Here, we discuss three types of risks that could affect forest offsets—fat tails, micro-correlation, and tail dependence—and provide examples of how they could present themselves in a forest offset context. Given these potential dependencies, we suggest several new risk management approaches that take into account dependencies in reversal risk across projects and which could help guard the climate integrity of an offsets program. We also argue that data collection be included as an integral part of any offsets program so that disturbance-related dependencies may be identified and managed as early and to the greatest extent possible.
Carbon Offsets and Environmental Impacts: NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, and Federal Climate Policy
April 2011
Carbon offsets have been an integral part of recent climate policy proposals, but there are questions about how a carbon offsets program would interact with existing environmental laws. Laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) require federal agencies to assess the potential impacts their actions would have on the environment. Such assessments can be lengthy and time consuming, and they could delay the establishment of an offsets program or the approval of individual projects. This paper examines how the type of offsets program proposed in recent climate legislation would be affected by the requirements of NEPA and the ESA. The authors suggest a range of policy options that would allow an offsets program to address any potential conflicts with these laws, while still meeting their requirements.
Using Biogeochemical Process Models to Quantify Greenhouse Gas Mitigation from Agricultural Management Projects
March 2011 - by Lydia P. Olander and Karen Haugen-Kozyra, with contributions from Stephen Del Grosso, César Izaurralde, Daniella Malin, Keith Paustian, and William Salas
This paper provides an overview of how biogeochemical process models can be used to quantify greenhouse gases (GHG) in agricultural systems for use in developing GHG mitigation programs or protocols. Federal and state agencies, voluntary carbon market registries, and companies are all looking for ways to assess mitigation opportunities in agriculture and to track outcomes of various management options.
Demand for REDD Carbon Credits: A Primer on Buyers, Markets, and Factors Impacting Prices
February 2011 - by Joshua D. Schneck, Brian C. Murray, Christopher S. Galik, and W. Aaron Jenkins
This paper provides an overview of the demand for forest carbon, including potential buyers and their objectives, markets for forest carbon, and forces that affect the price of forest carbon. It is intended for parties and organizations who are considering developing forest carbon projects, as an aid to understanding the changing market and demand for forest carbon credits. While the primary focus of the paper is on markets and demand for REDD credits—credits arising from projects that reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation—much of the information is applicable to afforestation and reforestation projects, as well as improved forest management.
An Output-based Intensity Approach for Crediting Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Agriculture: Explanation and Policy Implications
February 2011
Recent climate legislative proposals place a significant emphasis on greenhouse gas (GHG) offsets in uncapped sectors (e.g., agriculture and forestry) to reduce compliance costs of an economy‐wide cap‐and‐trade system, while incentivizing more environmentally friendly production. The most recent bill to be proposed is the Kerry‐Lieberman American Power Act. Section 734 of this bill establishes a comprehensive list of potentially eligible domestic offset activities. Among those included are “projects that reduce the greenhouse gas intensity per unit of agricultural production.” This output‐based intensity approach is a distinct departure from standard offset mechanisms for agriculture, which focus on absolute GHG reductions that are determined on a per unit area (acre or hectare) to which the practices are applied. While the focus of this discussion is offset mechanisms in regulatory or voluntary markets, insights can also be gained for low‐carbon fuel standards, supply chain requirements, and other low‐carbon strategies.
Institutions and Policies to Protect Rural Livelihoods in REDD+ Regimes
November 2010
Published in the November 2010 issue of Global Environmental Politics
The Potential Role for Management of Public Lands in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Climate Policy
August 2010 - by Lydia Olander, David Cooley, Christopher Galik
Public lands, including federal and state lands, offer significant opportunities for increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation from the management and restoration of forests, rangelands, and wetlands. This paper provides a rough estimate of the potential mitigation opportunities from public lands, including near-term sequestration generated from an elimination of timber harvests in public forests and improving management of some rangelands. It also presents policy options that decision makers and land managers can pursue to increase mitigation on public lands. This is a revised version of a paper that was published in July 2010.
Policy Impacts on Deforestation: Lessons Learned from Past Experiences to Inform New Initiatives
June 2010 - by Alexander Pfaff, Erin O. Sills, Gregory S. Amacher, Michael J. Coren, Kathleen Lawlor, and Charlotte Streck
A new Nicholas Institute report looks at the successes and failures of previous policy attempts to stem deforestation and suggests a way forward for global policy efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas from deforestation.
The Role of Public Lands in a Low-Carbon Economy
March 2010 - by Christopher S. Galik, Joseph L. Grinnell, David M. Cooley
The Effects of Low-Carbon Policies on Net Farm Income
February 2010 - by Justin S. Baker, Bruce A. McCarl, Brian C. Murray, Steven K. Rose, Ralph J. Alig, Darius Adams, Greg Latta, Robert Beach, Adam Daigneault
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