CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Planetary
Emissions Management Inc. (PEM) today announces the publication of
a study describing established universal scientific methods for
forest carbon accounting, endorsing direct measurement of
CO2 over estimation protocols for forest carbon credits.
"The Direct Measurement Forest Carbon Protocol: A commercial
system-of-systems to incentivize forest restoration and
management," described in the journal PeerJ, illustrates how the
problems of existing protocols, which are uncertain, expensive and
biased against landowners, can be resolved with innovative use of
existing technology.
"The upshot of the study is that it calls into question the
validity of estimation-based commercial forest carbon credits
worldwide, absent a full carbon accounting that can be verified by
direct CO2 measurement—anything less accelerates
deforestation and devalues forest ecosystems, biodiversity and
Indigenous People," said Bruno D.V.
Marino, CEO and lead author of the study. Existing forest
carbon credits have been questioned by journalists,
scientists and Indigenous Peoples, but improvements in the
protocols have stalled. A video abstract is available here. An
infographic is available here.
The problem is that existing protocols cannot fully account for
net forest carbon, a metric of benefit to the atmosphere that
balances carbon uptake by photosynthesis and carbon release by
respiration. Limited measurements of forest biomass, exclusion of
actual CO2 measurements and reliance on vegetation
growth models are employed worldwide, including by the California
Air Resources Board, the Climate Action Reserve, the American
Carbon Registry, and the UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation
and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD+), despite the risk of invalidation
by direct measurement, according to a recent study, also
co-authored by PEM.
"We have lost our way in the forest, blinded by large-scale
umbrella policies devoid of mandates for actual measurement of
forest CO2 and truly independent verification of net
CO2 reduction claims; scientific challenge to these
protocols and policies appears to be the only way to lay bare the
issues," remarked Marino.
Solutions to slow and stop deforestation are hiding in plain
sight, including universally accepted forest carbon science and
measurement methods, such as eddy covariance, deployed worldwide in
over 600 locations, to determine net carbon sequestration, or net
ecosystem exchange. However, established research methods have not
been used for commercial applications as illustrated by the
study.
About PEM: Planetary Emissions Management Inc. is an
American research and development company focused on direct
monitoring, measurement and verification of greenhouse gases to
manage climate change now and for future generations.
Media Contact:
Bruno D. V. Marino
+1 617-517-3178
Photos:
https://www.prlog.org/12820068
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SOURCE Planetary Emissions Management Inc.