Brandão, M., Levasseur, A., Weidema, B., Hauschild, M., Kirschbaum, M.U.F., Marland, G., Cowie, A., Werner, F., Vedel Jorgensen, S., Chomkhamsri, K., Pennington, D. (2012).. Key issues in accounting for carbon sequestration and temporary storage in life cycle assessment and carbon footprinting. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (Submitted).
Abstract. Biological sequestration can increase the carbon stocks of non-atmospheric reservoirs (e.g. land and land-based products). Since this contained carbon is sequestered from, and retained outside, the atmosphere for a period of time, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is temporarily reduced and some radiative forcing is avoided. Carbon removal from the atmosphere and storage in the biosphere or anthroposphere, therefore, has the potential to mitigate climate change, even if the carbon storage and associated benefits might be temporary.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Carbon Footprinting (CF) are increasingly popular tools for the environmental assessment of products that take into account their entire life cycle. Despite significant efforts to develop robust methods to account for the benefits, if any, of sequestration and temporary storage and release of biogenic carbon, a robust method is still required due to the lack of consensus on how it should be considered.
This paper reviews the available options and discusses the most appropriate method for accounting for the potential benefits of carbon sequestration and temporary storage. It is based on the key points that arose from the discussions that arose during a workshop (held at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Ispra in October 2010), which brought together experts on climate change, LCA and CF to review available options and to discuss the most appropriate method for accounting for the potential climate impacts of sequestration and temporary storage or release of biogenic carbon in LCA and CF.
Several viewpoints and approaches are presented in a structured manner to help decision-makers in their selection of an option from competing approaches on how to deal with timing issues, including delayed emissions of fossil carbon. Key issues are identified, particularly that the benefits of carbon storage depend on the cut-offs adopted when assessing climate change impacts; hence are not based on natural science.
Keywords: climate change, carbon footprint, carbon cycle, carbon stocks, carbon sinks, Global Warming Potential (GWP), time preferences
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