Trends in the forest carbon offset market in the United States

Background/Question/Methods

Carbon management represents a new frontier in natural resource science, management, and policy, and particularly, in forestry. While forests have been at the forefront of the climate solution discourse, little insight is available on the existing forest carbon offset projects in the only carbon offset markets in the US (California’s Cap-and-Trade and Voluntary Offset programs). To remedy this critical science and policy gap, we compiled a data set of all forestry projects from the two largest offset project registries in the United States; the Climate Action Reserve and the American Carbon Registry, which track offset projects and issue offset credits, and are responsible for verifying and certifying emission reductions.

Results/Conclusions

Our novel analysis of the offset market in California reveals that while improved forest management is the most credited project type in the CA market, existing projects vary to a great degree in their disclosure about the planned or completed forest management activities for the project area. We also found several gaps and research and policy needs – particularly related to forest practices considered improved forest management, forest C offset additionality and permanence. This study represents a major advance in the forests as climate solutions discourse (e.g., IPBES-IPCC Report on Biodiversity and Climate Change) and highlights a pressing need for policy-instruments to support and oversee these efforts, after all, forestland in the US is a major greenhouse sink.