The clean development mechanism

The total amount of carbon contained in all the world's forests is a significant part of the global carbon cycle. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol will allow afforestation and reforestation projects to be established in developing countries to assist industrialised countries reach their emission reduction targets. The baseline carbon emission rate in the absence of the project must be estimated. Reductions in emissions must be additional to those that would have occurred Without the project. The projects must be sustainable, and the consequences of the projects on other sites and carbon pools must be assessed. Methods to assess carbon savings in vegetation need to be agreed upon, as they are inherently less permanent than savings from improved energy efficiency or reduced energy consumption that are also allowed under the CDM. Economic analysis methods will be required to identify harvest times that optimise both carbon sequestration and conventional forest product values. It will be essential to monitor and validate carbon sequestration in any such forestry projects.