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A multimillion-dollar project which will verify the benefits of contro-versial carbon-offsetting initiatives is being launched today – with a team from Norfolk the only UK participants.
The $9.16m Carbon Benefits Project, which involves the Overseas Development Group at the University of East Anglia (UEA), hopes to encourage sustainable development schemes in developing countries that generate climate adaptation, mitigation and conservation benefits, as well as improving quality of life.
People often use carbon offsetting schemes – where they give money to such projects as planting trees – when they fly or make other journeys but, until now, there has been no way of knowing whether the initiatives actually work.
Now an innovative web-based system will be developed for measuring, monitoring and modelling the amount of carbon, and other greenhouse gas emissions, produced and stored in soil and vegetation by activities in a range of landscapes.
Prof Michael Stocking, from the UEA, said the system would enable organisations funding and running rural development and natural resource management schemes to demonstrate and verify the carbon benefits of their activities.
“We need to be able to track the change in carbon levels above and below ground, but at the moment there is no standardised, cost-effective and simple method to do this,” he said.
“A system is needed that can be applied to and measure the carbon impact of all types of projects, whether they are encouraging small-scale enterprises, such as furniture making and carving, or planting forests and crops. Natural resource management projects claim to have carbon benefits and organisations need to be able to demonstrate how their investments achieve global environment benefits.
“This research will develop a tool to help us understand what the carbon impacts of our activities are, on greenhouse gas emissions and on sequestration by vegetation and the soil. Agriculture has the biggest potential for capturing and storing carbon, thus reducing climate change. It will also enable organisations to establish whether carbon offsetting schemes are a success, which would hopefully then act as an incentive to do more.”
The Carbon Benefits Project is being led and funded by the Global Environment Facility and United Nations Environment Programme.
As well as the Overseas Development Group, organisations involved include Colorado State University, the World Wildlife Foundation, Michigan State University and national partners in a number of countries.
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