Investing in U.S. forests to mitigate climate change

Abstract

In recent years several U.S. federal policies have been adopted to support forest-based climate mitigation actions. This study focuses on current federal funds allocated to forest for climate change mitigation activities to assess how much they could deliver in terms of net sequestration under a best-case (optimized) scenario where the cheapest abatement options are implemented first and if these funds are in line to achieve domestic targets for 2030 and 2050. Multiple investments pathways are tested under two different assumptions on CO₂ fertilization to provide a range of future mitigation projections from forests. Results show that under annual investments in line with current federal funds (around $640 million), the expected net carbon flux of U.S. forests is around 745 MtCO₂/yr in 2030 (+ 12% increase from baseline) and if the investments expand after 2030 the net flux is expected to be 786 MtCO₂/yr in 2050 (+ 17% increase from baseline). When CO₂ fertilization is accounted for, the projections of net forest carbon sequestration increase by 17% in 2030 and about 1 GtCO₂ net sequestration achieved under federal funds in 2050, increasing the likelihood of meeting both short-term and long-term domestic targets.