U.S.-FocUSed Biochar report - BioEnergy Lists

manence question. Land management offsets are particularly problematic here, as carbon stored in soilsor trees can be released if the soils are reverted to till-intensive agriculture or if the trees are cut down anddecompose. Fire, pests, and other environmental changes are of concern as well. Offset programs may addresspermanence in a number of ways:» Requiring legal assurances that the carbon will remain stored, such that if reversal occurs the projectdeveloper must sequester more carbon or buy offset credits to cover her position;» Assigning expiration dates to each offset;» pooling a portion of credits from each project into a reserve, to be used in the event that any one project’soffsets are reversed; or» requiring project developers to deposit money into a regional shared liability fund that will pay out to anyproject reversed by an act of nature.• Is the activity that allegedly reduces emissions in fact merely pushing those emissions to another location,or another economic sector? This is the leakage question. Again, land management presents special challenges:practices that wholly displace emissions generating activities to other areas are not providing anynet savings in GHG emissions. Leakage is extremely difficult to control, and is often beyond the abilitiesof the offset generator to manage. Offset programs may choose to “discount” carbon credits to accountfor unavoidable leakage. This process involves awarding the developer only a portion of the emissions reductionsachieved, on the assumption that a percentage of them are probabilistically likely to be reversed.(CBO 2009).Offset verification schemes (for voluntary markets) and certification schemes (for compliance markets)allow offset generators to prove the legitimacy of an emissions-reducing activity through thedesignation of “methodologies” or “protocols” specific to that activity type. A typical methodology willrequire an offset generator to prove the additionality, quantifiability, permanence, and non-leakage of a particularproject or set of similar projects before carbon credits are awarded. This process can be long, arduous, complicated,risky, and extremely expensive. Lokey estimates that certifying a CDM project can cost between USD58,000 and 500,000 per year, depending on the complexity of the project. (Lokey 2009). Even after all the moneyand time has been spent on offset certification, there is still a risk that the project may not be awarded credits.Cost and risk are even higher in the absence of an established methodology, because the developer must proposea new methodology that the CDM Executive Board might accept, reject, or modify significantly before acceptance.(Lokey 2009). A schematic of the CDM process is included below for illustrative purposes. In the eventthat ACESA becomes law, and a U.S. carbon market is created, the US Environmental Protection Agency and USDepartment of Agriculture will have joint responsibility for establishing offset verification procedures for themarket. (CBO 2009).Biochar relevance in GHG markets in: Carbon Market Implications for Biochar69