Forest Carbon Sequestration under the U.S. Biofuel Energy Policies and its Implications for Korea

This paper analyzes impacts of the U.S. biofuel energy policies on annual additions to carbon stored in harvested wood products (HWP) and finds their implications for Korea. The annual addition is termed the HWP Contribution to forest sector sinks for U.S. national greenhouse gas (GHG) sinks and emissions reporting under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Estimation for HWP Contribution includes annual carbon additions to wood and paper products in use and in solid-waste disposal sites (SWDS). For this analysis, we hypothesize four alternative scenarios using the existing and pending U.S. energy policies where biofuels contribute different shares to total energy consumption. The U.S. forest products production and trade are projected to 2030 under each scenario using the U.S. Forest Products Module (USFPM), operating within the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM). Based on these projections, we estimate HWP Contributions under the Production-, the Stock Change-, and the Atmospheric Flow- Approaches provided by Intergovemmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories using the WOODCARB Ⅱ model developed by the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (EPL). Our estimates of HWP Contribution for the Production Approach in 2009 are somewhat higher than reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2011 (e.g., 22.64 Tg C/year vs. 14.80 Tg C/year) because assumptions for the USFPM/GFPM project housing recovery and wood consumption are greater than actual data for 2009. Projections to 2030 show that HOP Contribution under the Stock Change Approach is projected to be the lowest of the three approaches after 2009, which was the highest before 2009. the Stock Change Approach estimate is lower due to declining net imports. Even though scenarios differ in level of fuel wood consumption, there is not a large difference across scenarios in timber products production across alternative scenarios. The reason of little change in production and trade is that fuel wood expansion is accommodated mostly by differing increases of logging residue with relatively little difference in impact on other wood products production and trade.