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2.3.6. Timing Issues
Timing issues involve the dynamics of emissions and removals, issues of duration
(including ton-year accounting and risk), and time preference.
2.3.6.1. Emissions versus Removals
The inherent asymmetry in the timing of carbon emissions versus removals in
biotic systems creates difficulties in initializing a carbon accounting system.
Consider a forest that is managed for steady-state carbon stocks using a 100-year
rotation. In any given year after the first century of management, 1 percent
of the forest is logged while regrowth occurs in the other 99 percent of the
forest area. In the area where logging occurs, most of the aboveground biomass
carbon is immediately released or removed from the site. At that particular
location, full recovery of the stock of biomass carbon will take 99 years. The
carbon stock of the forest biomass as a whole remains constant, however, because
regrowth is occurring throughout the rest of the forest. An accounting system
that has been operating indefinitely will appropriately show zero net emissions
or removals whether it treats the entire forest as a single unit or separately
accounts for logging and regrowth. If, however, the accounting system only includes
activities taking place after a given date, such as 1990, separate accounting
of logging and regrowth would lead to reporting of net emissions because the
emissions would be almost fully accounted for, but only a portion of the regrowth
would be included. Conversely, if logging occurs periodically rather than on
a continuous basis, net uptake of carbon could be reported under the accounting
system if no logging happens to occur during the commitment period. The potential
for accounting artifacts from these timing differences is a key issue that can
be addressed through the definitions adopted for implementing Article 3.3 (see
Chapter 3) and the approach to additional activities adopted
under Article 3.4 (see Section 4.6).
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