Carbon accounting in forests: proceedings of an international workshop on 'facilitating international carbon accounting in forests' 2003

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief introduction to greenhouse and climate change, international frameworks, carbon sequestration and carbon trading. It focusses in particular on policy relating to Australia.The paper demonstrates that increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have been identified as a major cause of global warming. The Kyoto Protocol set the collective target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions of industrialised countries by 5% of 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Provisions within the Protocol would allow emission reduction projects, including afforestation and reforestation, to be set up in both developing and industrialised countries. Australia’s Federal Government has chosen not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. However, it is committed to continuing to develop domestic programmes to meet the target Australia agreed to at Kyoto.The paper concludes that there is a need for internationally accepted standard accounting methods to assess the amounts of carbon in particular afforestation and reforestation projects. These are required to estimate the amount of carbon that may be traded or used as an offset against greenhouse gas emissions.