Forestry and Agriculture Modeling Forum III: Overview

1. Forestry and Agriculture Modeling Forum III:Overview Dina Kruger Director, USEPA Climate Change Division October 14, 2004

2. Importance of Forestry & Ag Sectors • Forests and soils have a large impact on atmospheric levels of CO2 --- acting as both sources and sinks of greenhouse gas emissions • Current carbon sequestration rates in forestry & agriculture offset almost 10% of total U.S. GHG emissions • Forestry & agricultural activities can enhance carbon sinks and reduce GHG sources, thus reducing the buildup of atmospheric CO2, CH4 and N2O

3. EPA Focus Areas • Prepare annual US emissions inventory for all GHGs, including sequestration trends in forestry and agriculture, and CH4 & N2O emissions in agriculture. • Evaluate net GHG mitigation potential from U.S. forestry & agriculture, nationally and regionally • Support development of methods to address key GHG accounting issues at the project level • Support efforts to improve representation of forestry & agriculture in regional, national and global models

4. Key Analytical Challenges • Analysis shows significant biophysical potential for U.S. sequestration options: • in cropland soil C management, afforestation, forest management, and reducing emissions of CH4 and N2O from livestock and fertilizer use. • However: mobilizing these emissions reductions and sequestration requires us to answer key questions: • in presentations here at this Forum, and • in the months ahead, at follow-up Forums and other venues.

5. Forum Goals • Founded in 2001 by USEPA, USDA, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada • Improving linkages among research and policy communities -- across disciplines, sectors and modeling approaches and scales • Improving our understanding of the models and their results • Identifying promising future analyses and collaboration to inform decision-making

6. The Forum Concept • Who participates? • Leading researchers, policy makers, and practitioners from academia, the private sector, and government • How does the Forum operate? • Common modeling scenarios or case studies to explore topics using different modeling approaches • Annual workshops to report results and identify new activities • Potential for “study groups” to address priority issues between sessions

7. Results of Forums I and II • Provided estimates of US national-level GHG mitigation in the forestry and agriculture sectors • Used common modeling scenarios to demonstrate similarities and differences across model types (biophysical vs. economic) • Information exchange between US national modeling efforts and regional/global approaches • Began to assess project-level issues and co-benefits

8. Objectives of Forum III • Discuss priority areas where analytical and modeling efforts can support policy community • benefits, co-effects, costs of mitigation • Determine how to improve representation of program implementation issues in sectoral and economy-wide models • baseline setting, transaction costs, leakage

9. What to Look Forward to... • Discussion of the policy landscape • Domestically and internationally • Government and private-sector initiatives • Discussion of the modeling landscape • Focusing particularly on implementation issues • Presentation of case studies -- what is promising and how good is our analysis? • Identification of next steps and priorities