>> Carbon Sinks 

Carbon credits can be created by forests or 'carbon sinks.' Carbon sinks, such as forest plantations are included in an emissions trading system by allocating 'credits' for the amount of carbon which they soak up from the atmosphere and store. Forest growers can sell those credits under an emissions trading scheme to a company which requires credits to offset any emissions above those permitted.

This system offers forestry sectors commercial opportunities which are additional to their current operations through projects involving carbon absorption by forests and the creation of tradeable carbon credits.

>> How do Forests Act As Carbon Sinks 

Growing forests act as 'carbon sinks' by soaking up carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in their leaves, branches, stems and roots. Unlike many plants and most crops which have short lives or release much of the carbon stored at the end of each season, forests soak up and store carbon over decades and centuries(7). Furthermore, it has been noted that the potential of forests to store carbon is large enough that forests offer the possibility of storing significant amounts of additional carbon in relatively short periods, even decades.

Whilst scientific formulae have been developed for calculating the quantity of carbon which can be absorbed by forests, at a basic level, the quantity of carbon which can be soaked up and stored by a forest depends upon a number of factors. These include the type of forest, its' rate of growth and the ultimate use of the wood or other plant form harvested. In terms of species, the highest rates of carbon absorption are reported to be achieved by well managed, fast growing species located in good soils and high rainfall areas(8). Conversely, Borough, Bourke and Bennett (1998) report that the lowest rates of carbon absorption occur in forests located in areas of low rainfall, where soil and forest management is poor and slow growing species are used. However, many factors such as forest disturbance, harvesting and decay as well as vegetation and soil interactions will ultimately affect the total amount of carbon which can be stored within a forest over time.

>> Salinity Alleviation Project in Australia 

SGC of the Netherlands has prepared a pre feasibility report on a saltbush project in Australia. SGS is a member of the SGS Group which is the world’s largest inspection verification and testing organisation. The Group employs over 30,000 in 140 countries. The company offers a Carbon Offset Verification Service, providing verification and certification of greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration activities. It is anticipated that SGS will become accredited to issue certificates under the Framework Convention when such a scheme becomes operational.

A saltbush planting project in Australia would be considered either a domestic project or a Joint Implementation project. It would not be a CDM project because the activity is taking place in an annex 1 country.

As a domestic project such an activity would gain benefit by undertaking afforestation activities post 1990 which would increase Australia’s carbon stocks, helping to offset emissions arising from land clearance and combustion of fossil fuels. The benefit to be calculated as the difference between the carbon stock on the planted lands between 2008 and 2012 – ie the growth and sequestration of the saltbush over the five year period commencing in 2008. Similar benefits can be expected during subsequent accounting periods.

The carbon stored in the planted bush would be included in Australia’s annual inventories submitted to the UNFCCC, but whether or not the Australian government awards any credit to the project for this carbon is a domestic decision. The Australian government is to determine the Eligibility Criteria and accounting rules for such projects.

As a Joint Implementation project two things are required:

 1.  A non-host country that wishes to invest in the project or buy the ERU’s (Emission Reduction Units) produced by the project. That country must indicate its acceptance in the project.
 2.  Approval from the Australian government that the ERU’s deprived from the project can be transferred. Such approval is vital and cannot be taken for granted. ERU’s transferred from a host country will be deducted from that host country’s Assigned Amount. Therefore, before the Australian government agrees to such a transfer, it must be confident that it has picked up the benefits in its national inventories and does not need to retain the benefits to ensure its own compliance.

The Kyoto Protocol gives some indication of criteria that projects must fulfill to create ERU’s that are eligible and therefore tradable under the Protocol. No such criteria have been officially defined, but terms such as additional, long term involuntary are used and give a good indication as to the likely content of Eligible Criteria. SGS has been working with a set of criteria for several years and has applied these to a wide variety of sinks projects in a range of countries.

The SGS Eligibility Criteria fall into four main headings, these are:

• Acceptability;
• Additionality;
• Externalities; and
• Capacity.

Externalities refers to leakage and slippage. Leakage and slippage have the potential to detract from the project gains by either resulting in the relocation of emission actions or (in this case) substitution for sequestering actions and emissions from project activities.

In the context of this possible project, leakage is unlikely to be an issue. Assuming that there are no planting activities taking place on the land, there will be nothing to shift elsewhere. However, if money to pay for the planting where sourced from a fund that had been established to pay for such an activity, analysis might determine that the project was simply shifting the planting of saltbush into the project area at the expense of planting elsewhere.

Slipping will arise from the activities undertaken to prepare the land for planting, raising and transferring seedlings, planting and maintenance. Experience to date shows that this source of emission is a small percentage of project gains.

7. R. Sedjo, B. Sohngen & P. Jagger, 'Carbon Sinks in the Post Kyoto World-Part I', Weathervane.
8. C. Borough, M. Bourke and D. Bennett, 'Forests as CO2 Sinks, An Opportunity for Forest Growers' (1998).