Global Climate Change: Carbon Reporting Initiative

The program has been ongoing for six years, with the main objective of developing and implementing innovative tools with high scientific integrity. Under Year 6 of the cooperative agreement, the program has continued to improve the AFOLU carbon calculator (ACC) by updating the data sets, improving the user interface, and allowing for different levels of control by administrators. The tool will continue to be simple and easy to use, enabling the GCC Team and local missions and other stakeholders around the world to increase confidence in the integrity of results. The program has made significant progress in improving the ACC, including the development of a stand-alone decision tool that can estimate emission reductions or enhancement of removals of carbon over multiple years. Materials for implementing training missions have also been prepared. The program has also focused on improving the data collection for emission factors, including the development of new spatial and non-spatial datasets. A literature review has been conducted to identify additional sources of information, both spatial and non-spatial, pertaining to improving carbon stock and deforestation/reforestation estimates in mangrove forests. Winrock staff have traveled to the USGS's Earth Resource and Observation Science (EROS) Center to gather global mangrove data developed from Landsat Satellite imagery. In addition, the program has made progress in improving the data collection for agroforestry systems, including the development of a new database and review of methods used to estimate carbon benefits from AFS implementation. The program has also improved the data collection for selective logging timber extraction rates, including the collection of data on extraction rates for Convention and Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) for the country of Indonesia. The program has also made progress in improving the data collection for secondary forests, including the development of a database of aboveground biomass in secondary forests and an improved model for estimating carbon sequestration by secondary forest growth based on main climatic zones, age of regrowth, and maximum carrying capacity. The program has also established a consultancy with Dr. Sassan Saatchi to update the forest carbon stock map, and work is under way to refine the map accuracy. The program is also progressing on acquiring new data on deforestation for the period 2005-2010, which will be used to refine estimates of deforestation rates. Overall, the program has made significant progress in improving the ACC and developing new tools and datasets to support the reporting of global climate change impacts for forest-based activities.