Thread by @carbonplanorg

New article: Oregon fires burn California offset project and raise questions about the permanence of California’s approach to forest carbon. carbonplan.org/research/offse…

This was a collaboration between our team and co-authors @claudherb, Jared Stapp, Grayson Badgley, and Bill Anderegg.

We quantify the burned area of a large offset project (ACR260) impacted by the Riverside / Beachie Creek / Lionshead Fires

California has a “buffer pool” of extra offset credits that can be retired in case of forest carbon loss from fire, drought, and other impacts. But is the forest buffer pool robust enough to handle the inevitable fires of the future?

Our modeling work suggests that fires could easily deplete the offset buffer pool and will almost certainly make a large dent in it — leaving fewer credits to deal with other climate-driven disturbances, like drought.

Overall, we find that the expected carbon losses from this fire illustrate how California’s approach of using forests to mitigate climate change may need re-evaluation.

Thanks to @claudherb and Jared Stapp for identifying the fire’s impact on this offset project and then collaborating with us to put this analysis together.

And special thanks to Jared for the use of his photo in our post — check out his incredible work here: jaredstapp.com