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Future Options for Forest Carbon Markets in Scotland and the UK
This report discusses options for a future forest carbon market in the UK. Forests provide ‘climate services’ by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it as carbon. This research looks at whether the owners of UK forests could benefit more from maintaining and increasing the stock of carbon locked up in their forests. This could for example be done through some form of tradable carbon credit.
The research looked at:
- national and international mechanisms to administer the flow of carbon credits generated by forestry;
- the potential of UK forests to generate Kyoto-compliant carbon offsets;
- detailed options for developing and operating future forest carbon markets in the UK;
- barriers to the above options and how they could potentially be overcome;
- the likely scale of impacts on the forest sector in the UK.
The findings are from a desk-based literature review and a set of five semi-structured interviews with key experts including carbon brokers/traders, government officials and UN staff during March and April 2013. The project was commissioned by ClimateXChange for the Forestry Commission.