| Under Kyoto, forestry activities that sequester carbon can be used to create CO2 offset credits that could obviate the need for lifestyle-changing reductions in fossil fuel use. Credits are earned by storing carbon in forest ecosystems and wood products, although CO2 emissions are also mitigated by delaying deforestation, which accounts for one-quarter of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Non-permanent carbon offsets from forest activities are difficult to compare with each other and with mitigation strategies because they differ in how long they prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere. In this paper, we investigate issues of carbon sequestration in detail, but in particular we expand in comprehensive fashion on earlier work comparing carbon mitigation... |
