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Carbon Storage in Harvested Wood Products: Why Bother?

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)/Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)

Location: 226, 2nd floor, Collegium Maius

This side event aims at providing a basis for a policy discussion on a possible recognition of carbon storage in harvested wood products (HWPs) in a post-Kyoto regime: Is accounting for HWPs worthwhile, and at which cost?

Accounting for carbon stored in HWPs would create incentives for harvesting wood and its use in place of less climate-friendly materials.  However, the volumes involved are small compared to those stored in forests, and non-permanent, and HWP accounting raises many issues of equity and leakage.  No consensus has been reached so far, but policy makers must decide before Copenhagen, whether to include HWP accounting in the second commitment period, and, if so, how.

Chair:
Keith Andersen, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland

Time

Title of presentation

Speaker & Institution

14:30 – 14:40

Carbon storage in harvested wood products:  Recommendations arising from the Geneva Workshop

Kit Prins, Chief, UNECE/FAO Timber Section

14:40 – 14:50  

Accounting for HWPs is necessary and fair
speaker

TBC

14:50 – 15:00

The case against accounting for HWPs in a post-2012 agreement

Chris Henschel, National Manager, Domestic and International Affairs, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Canada

15:00 – 15:10  

HWPs in a post-Kyoto agreement

Sebastian Rueter, Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institute, (vTI, Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries), Germany

15:10 – 16:00

Discussion

 
Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
CIFOR advances human wellbeing, environmental conservation and equity by conducting research to inform policies and practices that affect forests in developing countries. CIFOR is one of 15 centres within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).