Merge branch 'main' into klamath-east-relisting

components/mdx/page-components.js

@@ -4,7 +4,10 @@ import dynamic from 'next/dynamic'
 //       `components` key in each post's frontmatter.
 const components = {
   'klamath-east-relisting': {},
+  'ipcc-cdr-methodologies': {},
   'whiskey-ifm-fire': {},
+  'mescalero-wildfires-2024': {},
+  'rimba-raya-license': {},
   'carb-buffer-decline': {
     BufferBalance: dynamic(() =>
       import('../../posts/carb-buffer-decline/buffer-balance.js').then(

package.json

@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
     "@carbonplan/components": "^12.5.0",
     "@carbonplan/icons": "^2.0.0",
     "@carbonplan/layouts": "^4.0.0",
-    "@carbonplan/maps": "^3.0.0",
+    "@carbonplan/maps": "^3.4.0",
     "@carbonplan/prism": "^2.0.0",
     "@carbonplan/theme": "^8.1.0",
     "@emotion/react": "^11.7.1",

posts/carb-buffer-decline.md

@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ authors:
 date: 04-05-2024
 summary: New data released by the California Air Resources Board shows that California’s forest offset buffer pool has shrunk two quarters in a row.
 card: carb-buffer-decline
-fileId: 15dZiRTDJRsPBbZZJl68_796yHrT5ACa8S-_BXe6psAw
 components:
   - name: BufferBalance
     src: ./buffer-balance.js

posts/carb-buffer-decline/buffer-balance.js

@@ -12,8 +12,6 @@ import {
   Point,
 } from '@carbonplan/charts'
 
-// data from https://github.com/carbonplan/toucan-crypto-offsets/tree/main/data
-
 const data = {
   '2014-04-01': null,
   '2014-07-01': 1193461.0,
@@ -107,7 +105,7 @@ const BufferBalance = () => {
         <Plot>
           <StackedBar data={counts} color={['grey', 'grey', 'red']} />
         </Plot>
-        <Point x={2024.25} y={40000000} align='right'>
+        <Point x={2024.125} y={35000000} align='right' verticalAlign='bottom'>
           <Box
             sx={{
               color: 'red',

posts/ipcc-cdr-methodologies.md

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+---
+version: 1.0.1
+title: Now is the time to provide evidence to inform IPCC carbon removal reporting standards
+authors:
+  - Freya Chay
+  - name: Steve Smith
+    src: https://images.carbonplan.org/authors/steve-smith.png
+date: 10-21-2024
+summary: Upcoming CDR methodologies from the IPCC will provide a blueprint for national reporting of CDR. Now is the time to share evidence.
+card: ipcc-cdr-methodologies
+---
+
+The IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) plays a quiet but critical role in global climate policy. This body develops [methodologies](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/index.html) that countries use to estimate and report the greenhouse gas emissions and removals that happen within their borders. Those national inventories provide the basis for national climate policies and for reporting progress toward Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.
+
+We just returned home from Copenhagen, where the TFI gathered around 100 experts to develop a table of contents for an upcoming methodology report on carbon dioxide removal (CDR), carbon capture and utilization (CCU), and carbon capture and storage (CCS). This meeting was just one step in a long process. The scope and timetable will need to be approved by governments in the IPCC plenary in early 2025, authors will be recruited next summer, and the report will likely be published in the second half of 2027.
+
+Although this process might feel removed from the day-to-day work of scientists and practitioners working on CDR, it will likely shape the field for a long time to come. Today's national inventories, for instance, follow guidelines established in 2006, which have only been tweaked a couple of times since. In other words, don’t expect the TFI to look at CDR again for several more years. Although countries always have the freedom to report on emissions and removals for which the TFI does not provide guidance, the methodology report will send an important signal about which CDR approaches countries should take seriously and provide a clear path for countries to take credit for those activities.
+
+Some CDR approaches are already addressed by TFI methodologies. These include forest and soil-based methods, [bioenergy with carbon capture and storage](https://carbonplan.org/research/cdr-verification/beccs), and [biochar](https://carbonplan.org/research/cdr-verification/biochar). But existing methodologies will likely be updated, and new methodologies may be developed for other approaches such as [direct air capture](https://carbonplan.org/research/cdr-verification), [enhanced weathering](https://carbonplan.org/research/cdr-verification/enhanced-weathering), [ocean alkalinity enhancement](https://carbonplan.org/research/cdr-verification/ocean-alkalinity-enhancement-electrochemical), and [direct ocean removal](https://carbonplan.org/research/cdr-verification/direct-ocean-removal). During the writing process, authors will evaluate if there is sufficient scientific evidence to develop a methodology for each CDR approach under consideration. Only literature made public before July 2026 will be considered. Although published, peer-reviewed scientific papers will be given precedence, it appears that preprints and other reports made public by the deadline may be taken into consideration.
+
+If you are working on CDR — especially on these newer technologies — this is an important window in which to publicly share the data and methods you have to demonstrate the efficacy of your approach. Keep an eye on the [IPCC TFI website](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/meeting/meeting.html) for public outputs from the scoping meeting and more details on the process to come.

posts/mescalero-wildfires-2024.md

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+---
+version: 1.0.0
+title: Wildfires in the US are burning offset projects – again
+authors:
+  - Grayson Badgley
+date: 06-26-2024
+summary: Two fires in southern New Mexico have damaged the Mescalero Apache offset project, a large forest project enrolled in California’s forest offset program.
+card: mescalero-wildfires-2024
+---
+
+Wildfires are burning again in the United States. This time, it’s the [South Fork and Salt fires](https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/nmmea-south-fork-and-salt), which started burning last Monday in southern New Mexico. Anomalously dry and windy conditions helped fuel these blazes, which quickly engulfed thousands of acres, triggering widespread evacuations, damaging upwards of 1,000 structures, and tragically killing at least two people.
+
+These events are already awful as immediate human tragedies. But we track wildfires here at CarbonPlan because of the longer term impacts they have on efforts to combat climate change. Along with local communities, the South Fork and Salt fires have burned thousands of acres of the Mescalero Apache offset project ([CAR1183](https://carbonplan.org/research/offsets-db/projects/CAR1183)), a forest enrolled in California’s offset program. The state’s polluting industries use projects like this to compensate for their carbon emissions.
+
+Based on reports from the ground, we also know that the fires burned at high severity, especially during their initial expansion. High severity fires are especially destructive to trees, which undermines the carbon storage of the offset project. We estimate that the pair of fires burned [over 12,000 acres](https://carbonplan.org/research/forest-offsets-fires?center=-105.67830750963265,33.2453353020572&zoom=10.392163207249022). Because the carbon stored by the forest is used by polluters in California to justify their ongoing emissions, that [lost carbon will need to be compensated for by the program’s buffer pool](https://carbonplan.org/research/buffer-pool-burning), a reserve of credits held as insurance for when offset projects are damaged.
+
+Based on the size and severity of this pair of fires, it seems all but inevitable that the program's buffer pool will take a hit. It’s difficult to precisely estimate the magnitude of those losses. Previously, [we’ve relied on US Forest Service data on fire severity](https://burnseverity.cr.usgs.gov/ravg/) to estimate the number of offset credits lost from large fire events. However, those data can take weeks to months to become available.
+
+Even without precise data, we can come up with a back-of-the-envelope estimate. We know 12,600 acres burned and, according to project paperwork, the project stores an average of 35.6 tCO₂ per acre. Let’s assume half the acres burned at high severity, which kills 90 percent of standing live trees. Setting aside any carbon recovered from salvage harvests, multiplying everything together (acreage: 12,600; severity: 0.5; mortality: 0.9; carbon stocks: 35.6) yields 201,852 offset credits lost. This estimate is mostly useful to gauge the order of magnitude of the potential loss. Because projects have latitude in how they account for wildfire losses, we’ll need to wait for more data and paperwork to learn more.
+
+Fires like South Fork and Salt can further destabilize California's already shaky offset program. Every time projects enrolled in the program are substantially damaged by fire, the state has to dip into the program’s buffer pool. And while new credits might be added to the buffer pool over time, the losses take a toll, just like losses against any insurance program. [Evidence shows that those losses are stacking up](https://carbonplan.org/blog/carb-buffer-decline) in ways that could undermine the long-term integrity of California’s program.
+
+If we’re going to use offsets to counteract climate change, we need the programs to do a better job of taking the risks of wildfires into account.

posts/rimba-raya-license.md

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+---
+version: 1.0.0
+title: What happens if one of the world’s largest offsets projects collapses? We might find out.
+authors:
+  - Grayson Badgley
+date: 04-30-2024
+summary: A political threat to a massive offset project in Indonesia illustrates the risks of carbon offsetting.
+card: rimba-raya-license
+---
+
+Rimba Raya is one of the world’s largest offset projects and among the more highly regarded projects available on the market today – a tropical haven in Indonesia where both the atmosphere and endangered orangutans are protected through forest preservation. Unfortunately, the project’s future looks uncertain. Carbon Pulse, a carbon market news outlet, recently reported that the Indonesian government revoked a license crucial to the continued operation of Rimba Raya and that the project is now “[struggling to keep afloat](https://carbon-pulse.com/281876).”
+
+Though nobody knows exactly what might happen, the mere possibility of Rimba Raya going under illustrates the dangerous precarity of the global carbon market.
+
+We’ve [written a lot](https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2022.930426) about [the irony of how forest fires](https://carbonplan.org/research/buffer-pool-burning) that are themselves linked to climate change [put offsets at risk](https://slate.com/technology/2024/02/carbon-offsets-california-fire-neutral-shipping-climate-change.html). But the ironies go deeper still. Offsets are a politically and economically convenient solution to climate change that can be very easily undermined by politics and economics.
+
+If whatever is happening with the Indonesian government ends up sinking Rimba Raya, the project’s failure would use up around 46 percent of the buffer pool for Verra, one of the largest carbon credit registries. Buffer pools serve as a self-insurance program that can be used to shore up carbon offsets when individual projects run into difficulties. But Verra’s buffer pool only contains around 72.3 million credits and Rimba Raya has been issued 33.6 million credits. The failure of this single project, due to still vague and developing political decisions, would be devastating to Verra.
+
+And the problems only get worse. If both Rimba Raya and another large, [recently profiled](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/the-great-cash-for-carbon-hustle) and deeply problematic project called Kariba fail, it could result in the loss of approximately 83 to 96 percent of Verra’s buffer pool (combining our estimate for Rimba Raya with [recent reporting](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-27/shaky-zimbabwe-project-puts-whole-carbon-market-at-risk) from _Bloomberg_). Given the sheer size of Verra’s registry, which has issued over a billion offset credits to date, a failure of Rimba Raya — especially if paired with a Kariba failure — would have widespread repercussions for the global carbon market.
+
+The issue here isn’t whether or not Rimba Raya is a “good” or “bad” project. Rimba Raya seems to be held in fairly high regard. The project was developed during a time of high deforestation rates across Borneo, and its eventual enrollment under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard was [widely](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/31/worlds-largest-redd-project-indonesia) [heralded](https://news.mongabay.com/2013/05/indonesias-first-redd-project-finally-approved/) as a conservation success. Furthermore, despite Rimba Raya’s size, we’re not aware of any high-profile exposés or academic studies that have pinpointed issues with the project’s design. The project also comes with strong co-benefits, such as the fact that it overlaps with both critical orangutan habitat and tropical peatlands that store vast quantities of carbon. In other words, this project seems well-intentioned and does not seem to involve any overt malfeasance.
+
+Instead, the uncertainty hovering around Rimba Raya highlights just how vulnerable offsets are to human behavior. Human choices, whether crooked business dealings or as-yet-unclear government regulatory decisions, can threaten the global carbon market as surely as any fire.

posts/whiskey-ifm-fire.md

@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ authors:
 date: 07-17-2024
 summary: 'The Shelly Fire in Northern California highlights two problems with the offsets market: carbon losses from wildfire and disclosure of project boundaries.'
 card: whiskey-ifm-fire
-fileId: 1f4Nuf--We6crBdtevOp6xYExDNipwkNJ3jSL38AbKto
 ---
 
 Another large forest offset project is burning, marking the second project to burn in the 2024 wildfire season. Thanks to the sharp eyes of Zeke Lunder, who runs [The Lookout](https://the-lookout.org/) where he dispenses invaluable and timely analysis of wildfires across the American West, we know that the [Shelly Fire](https://app.watchduty.org/#/i/24191) is currently burning through the “Scott River Whiskey IFM [improved forest management] Project” ([ACR733](https://carbonplan.org/research/offsets-db/projects/ACR733)), a voluntary offset project located in Northern California. Zeke first mentioned the project’s intersection with the Shelly Fire over a week ago during his [July 7 livestream](https://youtu.be/szD6M2sQpwY?t=1245).