Faizal Parish, Global Environment Centre, reinterated that the demand for biodiesel promotes the expansion of palm oil plantations and peatland drainage. He explained that the emissions from palm oil are substantial, particularly for palm oil produced on peatlands when considering the emissions resulting from peatland degradation. Parish encouraged, inter alia, improving the water and land management on existing peatland plantations and rehabilitating abandoned or degraded peatlands. He underscored the cost-effectiveness of conserving peatlands as a way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Hiroki Kondo, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, presented on the Frontier Research Center for Global Change’s involvement in developing super-high resolution models that nest regional and global models and allow for detection of biases and meaningful downscaling of climate projections. He emphasized the importance of regional projections for adaptation studies.

Ben Mathews, Université catholique de Louvain, noted that climate science and policy were currently disconnected, and emphasized the difficulty and importance of providing policymakers with information that allows them to understand the sensitivity of projections to various policy options. He underscored the need for a range of model complexities, with each level of complexity having an advantage depending on its use. Mathews presented his interactive “Java Climate Model,” focused on stabilization scenarios, which aims to overcome the limitations of “back of the envelope” calculations by developing a transparent and flexible tool that is calibrated from more complex models, but also allows the user to adjust parameters and observe the changes in model outputs.

Martin Beniston, University of Geneva, Switzerland, discussed extremes in a warmer climate, with a focus on Europe and the Alps. He said that extreme events can be defined as “extreme” based on frequency, intensity and the extent of impacts, and noted the possible underlying causes and consequences of such events.

The subsequent discussion focused on how tools can incorporate the responses of extreme events to policy options, uncertainties in regional climate models, and the dangers of oversimplifying models.

Karin Ritter, American Petroleum Institute, presented the Petroleum Industry Guidelines for CCS Emission Reductions. She introduced the general project guidelines, noting that their objectives were to identify, assess and develop candidate projects that would lead to credible emission reductions, and to develop a framework for assessing emission reductions associated with specific project families. Focusing in CCS in particular, she gave an overview of the CCS chain of processes, how to consider candidates for baseline scenarios, the concept of assessment boundary, and illustrative projects. Outlining the many monitoring techniques, she said that monitoring for CCS was important for risk assessment and in establishing the avoided amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and that monitoring must be tailored to site specific characteristics.

He noted his research used 14 case studies that compare ecosystem benefits with benefits from alternative activities and classified these ecosystem benefits according to whether they are local, national or global. From examining these case studies, he concluded that when global benefits of the ecosystem are included in the analysis, the analysis favors conservation activities. Strassburg underscored that, for developed countries, conservation provides superior benefits even when only national ecosystem benefits are considered. For developing countries, he highlighted that national ecosystem benefits are still inferior to those from alternative uses, but that when global benefits are considered the balance tilts towards conservation. He said that if a country stays in the global equilibrium point, the country would lose, but the international community would gain from conservation. He pointed to the potential for a win-win solution if the international community compensates a given country in an amount between what the country would lose and what the international community would win. He showed an example of the “cross-scale dynamic approach” for the Brazilian Amazon and noted that the compensation mechanism aims to fix the scale-mismatch between natural and human systems by internalizing part of the global benefits provided by the ecosystem.

He underlined possible projects that could improve forests management in existing forest by, e.g., enhancing regeneration, changing harvesting practices and switching to no-till management. On emissions from forestry, he noted projects on forest fire prevention and deforestation avoidance.

Schlamadinger said that LULUCF activities can either reduce emissions by addressing sources or promote removal via sinks, and explained that sinks do not always remove greenhouse gases (GHGs). He concluded that JI LULUCF projects will: start generating credits as late as 2014; depend on the ability of the country to meet JI Track 1 requirements; and depend on the ability of the country to generate removal units (RMUs).

Murray Ward, Global Climate Change Consultancy, recalled the negotiation process towards the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. He noted that the Kyoto Protocol rules for JI were vague and said that JI Track 2 expanded the opportunity for good projects. He explained that the International Transaction Log (ITL) process allows for changes and improvements to be made.

Robert O’Sullivan, CLIMATEFOCUS, underscored possible legal interpretations of the Marrakesh Accords regarding JI Track 2 projects and ITL, and questioned whether the Accords allow conversion of RMUs to ERUs for LULUCF. He noted that Track 1 eligibility for JI has more requirements while Track 2 has three criteria, which are the need for: being a party to Kyoto Protocol; having calculated the country’s assigned amount; and having a national registry in place for tracking the country’s assigned amount. O’Sullivan noted that for accommodating JI LULUCF projects, parties need to re-examine the ITL rules and procedures.

Martin Burian, GFA Envest, outlined forest management projects in the Russian Federation. He said such projects allow for a conservative calculation of ERUs based on a solid baseline contained in forest management plans, and tackle leakage and permanence issues. Burian concluded that there is significant potential for forest projects in JI countries and they should not be bound to registered methodologies. In the ensuing discussion, participants debated: evidence of reduced deforestation and the generation of credits; submission of accounts under JI Track 2; and the need to use ERUs for LULUCF projects.