Action needed to make carbon offsets from forest conservation work for climate change mitigation

Thales A.P. West, Sven Wunder, Erin O. Sills, Jan Börner, Sami W. Rifai, Alexandra N. Neidermeier, Gabriel P. Frey, Andreas Kontoleon

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

859 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Carbon offsets from voluntary avoided-deforestation projects are generated on the basis of performance in relation to ex ante deforestation baselines. We examined the effects of 26 such project sites in six countries on three continents using synthetic control methods for causal inference. We found that most projects have not significantly reduced deforestation. For projects that did, reductions were substantially lower than claimed. This reflects differences between the project ex ante baselines and ex post counterfactuals according to observed deforestation in control areas. Methodologies used to construct deforestation baselines for carbon offset interventions need urgent revisions to correctly attribute reduced deforestation to the projects, thus maintaining both incentives for forest conservation and the integrity of global carbon accounting.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)873-877
Number of pages5
JournalScience
Volume381
Issue number6660
Early online date24 Aug 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Aug 2023

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Action needed to make carbon offsets from forest conservation work for climate change mitigation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this