Abstract:
Global warming that may cause environmental catastrophes, dramatic economic
losses and, in extreme case, may lead to an extinction of human race, is driven by
anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous
oxide and others) into atmosphere. It has been shown that forests can efficiently
absorb carbon from the atmosphere and reduce the concentration of greenhouse
gases mitigating climatic change.
In this study we explore environmentally oriented forest management options for
carbon mitigation. We concentrate on Northwest Russia, St. Petersburg region in
particular. This research is a part of larger project comparing carbon dynamics in
two ecosystems: U.S. Pacific Northwest and Northwest Russia. We use
STANIDCARB model to simulate the growth of forest and account for sequestered
carbon that allow exploring the effect of different management regimes on carbon
storage and economic value. We evaluate 140 regimes with different combinations
of rotation length, regeneration type, intensity and frequency of thinnings. We
employ Data Envelopment Analysis to identify the set of carbon and profit efficient
management regimes. The set of efficient points comprises production possibility
frontier that shows a tradeoff between stored carbon and monetary value. Then, we
measure the marginal costs of carbon sequestration along the production possibility
frontier.
The results suggested that the marginal costs of carbon sequestration exhibit
diminishing returns and are negatively correlated with the discount rate. At 4%
discount rate the marginal costs vary from 0.08 to 4.71 USD.
