Table of Contents

Land Use & Global Climate Change: Forests, Land Management, and the Kyoto Protocol

Foreword       ii

Executive Summary    iii

I. Introduction    1

II. Mitigating Climate Change by Managing the Terrestrial Biosphere   5

A. Options for Managing Terrestrial Carbon: Avoidance, Sequestration,
              Fossil-Fuel Substitution   6
B. How LULUCF Activities Differ from Energy Sector Activities   7

III. Development of the Kyoto Protocol      13

A. The UNFCCC and the Berlin Mandate   13
B. Key Aspects of the "Sinks" Negotiations Leading to the Kyoto Protocol   15
C. How the Kyoto Protocol Incorporates LULUCF   21

IV. Critical Issues for National Land-Use Change and Forestry    26

A. Human-Induced Activities   27
B. What is a Forest? What is Reforestation?   28
C. Dealing with Uncertainty and Verifiability   30
D. Other Times and Other Places: Permanence and Leakage   31
E. Additional Human-Induced Activities   32
F. Which Pools and Which Gases?   35
G. An Efficient National Accounting System   36

V. Critical Issues Surrounding Project-Based Activities    39

A. Carbon Sinks and the Clean Development Mechanism   39
B. Permanence in Annex I versus Non-Annex I Countries   40
C. Additionality and Baselines   41
D. An Accounting System for Projects   43

VI. Country Positions on LULUCF Post-Kyoto    44

A. The Effect of LULUCF Activities on the United States Target   44
B. Present Positions on LULUCF   46

VII. Conclusions     48

Endnotes    51

Reference    52