Sanders-DeMott et al. (2025): Ground-Truth: Can Forest Carbon Protocols Ensure High-Quality Credits?

R. Sanders-DeMott, L. R. Hutyra, M. D. Hurteau, W. S. Keeton, K. S. Fallon, W. R. L. Anderegg, D. Y. Hollinger, S. E. Kuebbing, M. S. Lucash, E. M. Ordway, R. Vargas, W. S. Walker, IN: Earth’s Future, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF005414

Forests have substantial potential to help mitigate climate change. Private finance channeled through carbon credits is one way to fund that mitigation, but market-based approaches to forest carbon projects have been fraught to date. Public skepticism of forest carbon markets signals a need to closely scrutinize the system for certifying carbon credits. The authors rigorously reviewed and scored new and existing protocols for the voluntary and North American compliance carbon markets. They included protocols for forest projects engaging in improved forest management, afforestation/reforestation, and avoided planned forest conversion.

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