Monday, October 27, 2008

Initiative Founded to Deliver "Bi-National" Forest Offset Standard


It's official: A Forest Carbon Standards Committee convened in Washington DC last week has agreed to take on the task of developing a "bi-national" forest carbon offset protocol that could be taken 'off-the-shelf' by any jurisdiction in the US or Canada that is going to include forest offsets in a regulated carbon market.

The protocol will be an ANSI (American National Standards Initiative) standard, and the secretariat is asking whether it could also be accredited as a CSA (Canadian Standards Association) standard. An important question is how Canadians and Canadian organizations will feel about this process setting a Canadian standard because it is membership on the committee is largely American.

The big question on my mind is: is this the right forum to develop the vision for Canadian forest carbon offsets?

The committee agreed to focus its work in four topic areas:
  • Baselines and additionality
  • Permanence and leakage
  • Quantification, verification, measurement and monitoring
  • Sustainability
The next step for a small sub-committee to develop a scoping paper for the committee's work.

Watch here for updates and comments on the process.

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