think climate. think change.
Department of Climate Change
Gary Richards, August 2002
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Under the Kyoto Protocol, Articles 3.3, 3.4 and 3.7 demand complex and varying requirements for the estimation of biomass. To date, the Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGGIs) have been prepared using National and State level data derived largely from a mix of modelling, forest inventory data and estimates based on broad vegetation structural classifications (woodlands, open forests and closed forests). The forest inventory data, as used in the NGGI, provides areas and age classes for native forests and plantations and generalises growth estimates for these forests. Production statistics are then used to estimate the amount of forest slash produced by harvest, using a single correction factor applied to stemwood volume.
In future, the requirements of Article 3.3 (and possibly Article 3.4) will demand project level accounting that is spatially explicit. Any carbon trading environment will also require spatially explicit accounting to 'track' various carbon stock changes in projects belonging to different owners. However, under the 1996 Revised IPCC Guidelines, such spatial allocation of carbon change is not required of the continental inventories of the NGGI nor, therefore, for calculating the 1990 Baseline (Article 3.7).
This report describes the approaches to building programs that will, in the short-term, allow for the development of a credible and verifiable approach to biomass calculations for the 1990 Baseline, as required under the Kyoto Protocol. In the short- to medium-term the work on the Baseline will provide the basis of the non-spatial elements required for future accounting at a project scale. The 1990 Baseline will therefore provide the transitional stage in a move from the current NGGI approaches, through the more refined continental approaches for accounting in the 1990 Baseline, to project level, bottom-up accounting from 1990 onwards.
