Volume 87, Nº 4 (2023)

Russia is developing a legal framework for the Paris Agreement implementation. In Russian strategic documents, there is no consistency in measures and quantitative indicators to reduce emissions and increase absorption of greenhouse gases. The main focus on forests and other ecosystems through the implementation of climate change mitigation projects also raises questions. The purpose of this paper is to determine the goal and place of these projects within the framework of a national low-carbon policy, and to analyze the opportunities and limitations of such projects in Russia. The main criteria are the additionality, conservative baselines, and minimization of risks (leakage, non-permanence, cessation of project funding, reversion). Ecosystem projects are high-risk compared to industrial projects, while the climate component of project activities occurs only in the long-term preservation of the result. The project’s goal in Russia to refine mitigation technologies based on sustainable management of natural ecosystems: the results lead to the multiple benefits including ecosystem services of the territory, biodiversity and adaptation to climate change. Therefore, their attractiveness in the implementation of sustainable development policies of companies and the state is growing. Given the additional nature, projects will not be able to provide a significant quantitative contribution to mitigation, but can provide a tool to achieve that. At the initial stage of the Russian carbon market it is necessary to allow only reliable and transparent projects (reforestation and afforestation with mixed species; improved forest management of managed forests; management of previously unmanaged forests; restoration of wetlands/grassland ecosystems; conservation of soil carbon of agricultural lands; biochar inputs to soils). Projects such as forest conservation from logging and monoculture plantations require a separate regulatory framework to prevent tampering and minimize threats to local natural ecosystems.

The assessment of the forest carbon balance is of great importance for the building of the climate policy of the Russian Federation at both national and international levels. At the same time, the results of such assessments conducted by different scientific groups vary depending on the approaches and methodologies used. This study considers the key systems for assessing the carbon balance of forest ecosystems in the Russian Federation: Integrated Land Information System, IZIS (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria), The Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector, CBM-CFS (Canada), Regional Forest Carbon Budget Assessment, ROBUL (Russia), the methodology of the All-Russian Research Institute of Forestry and Mechanization of Forestry (Russia). The methodologies are compared with respect to their compliance with the IPCC requirements. The study identifies the individual characteristics of the methodologies and their application, and proposes recommendations for improving the accuracy of carbon balance estimates. The main key differences between the estimates of different scientific groups, include: compliance with the recommendations of IPCC; selection between the methods of “gain−loss” and “stock−difference”; approach to the identification of managed forests; calculation method of forest fire emissions; sources of initial data, and their reliability. The study notes the importance of scientific discussion and the necessity of compliance of the methodologies with international standards, emphasizes the problem of outdated initial data and underestimation of forest fire emissions, regardless of the chosen methodology. In general, the currently used methodology satisfactorily estimates forest carbon balance. It is recommended to improve the estimates based on remote sensing data and the second cycle of the State Forest Inventory (SFI). The implementation of the Strategy of socio-economic development of the Russian Federation with low greenhouse gas emissions until 2050 should be provided not only by changes in the method of calculating the carbon balance, but rather through real forest protection measures. Any significant adjustment to the methodology must be accompanied by an adjustment to national climate goals.

The paper provides a brief analysis of well-known works containing evidence of carbon accumulation in old-growth forests. The analysis of the current state of the problem allows us to conclude that old-growth forests continue to accumulate carbon. A map of old-growth forests in Russia, identified on the basis of tree age higher than 200 years, using remote sensing data, is presented, and estimates of carbon pools in these forests are discussed. According to the estimates obtained, the area of old-growth forests in Russia was 163 mln ha as of 2021, and carbon stocks in phytomass reached 7.33 bln t, with the contribution of larch forests and larch woodlands of 86%. It is shown that the most important cause of uncertainties in the estimates of carbon cycles in old-growth forests is the uncertainty of the concept of “old-growth forests.” The mosaic structure of forests, that is, the high horizontal structural diversity, contributes to the accumulation of nitrogen and carbon in soils due to the creation of functioning conditions for various plant species, including light-loving ones, and, accordingly, due to the presence of litter of different quality, which is important for soil biota. Old-growth mosaic forests in Moskvoretsko-Oka Plain accumulated more nitrogen and carbon in soils than forests at an earlier stage of succession with a low mosaicity (in average 80 t/ha versus 60 t/ha in the 30-cm layer). The old-growth fir-beech dead-cover forests of the Northwestern Caucasus, whose tree stand is characterized by the highest productivity in Russia and Europe and high carbon reserves in the tree stand, are characterized by low carbon stock in soils compared to forests at an earlier stage of development (in average 58 t/ha versus 99 t/ha in 30-cm layer). This is due to the low quality of beech and fir litter and the absence of a pronounced window mosaic, which prevents the colonization of light-loving plant species, including with a high quality of litter. It is shown that, along with microorganisms, it is necessary to take into account such agents of decomposition, mineralization and humification as earthworms, which play a key role in carbon cycles. Carbon stock in the litter of northern taiga spruce forests is an order of magnitude higher than in coniferous-broad-leaved forests; in the litter and in the mineral layer of 0–30 cm, the carbon reserves under the crowns of spruce trees for about 200 years turned out to be significantly higher than in the spaces between the crowns, exceeding 80 t/ha.

Soils and their organic carbon (SOC) are recognized as the main regulators of the global carbon cycle. At the same time, the calculations of SOC stock are not considered for climate projects and remain unclaimed. The aim of the study is to demonstrate the perspective of SOC stock analysis for planning and decision-making within the framework of Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Programs. The study exploits modern available digital soil databases processed by QGIS tools. Using the example of agricultural soils in European Russia, it has been shown that SOC reserves in the 0.3 m layer of the base year 1990 were 7.0 Gt C in arable and 3.1 Gt C in pasture lands. It was found that during the period of agricultural use, the stock of SOC decreased by 1.8 Gt C (21% of the original content) on arable land and 0.3 Gt C (9% of the original content) on pastures. The loss of SOC stock from 0.3 m layer amounted to about 2.1 Gt C (some 7.7 Gt CO₂-eq.). The decline of SOС stock from the 0.3–1.0 m layer of arable and pasture lands amounted to about 1.4 Gt C or 5.2 Gt CO₂-eq., which reaches almost 70% of the loss of the surface 0.3 m layer. The total loss of SOC stock from agricultural soils from a 1.0 m layer is about 12.9 Gt CO₂-eq., which is almost 9 times higher than the total greenhouse gas emission of the Russian Federation in 2020. It is proposed to include deeper layers of agricultural soils in the national standard for emissions and removals of greenhouse gas accounting. An approach is shown to use the spatial distribution of SOC stock for preliminary planning of climate projects within the framework of Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Programs. For the practical establishment of greenhouse gas absorption projects, detailed justifications are required. The performed studies are harmonized with the requirements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which confirms the potential of soils use in climate projects of the Russian Federation.

Drained peatlands are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. When abandoned, they become the most likely sites of peat fires. An effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent peatland fires in disused drained peatlands is through rewetting and wetland restoration. These can make significant contributions to the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement within the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector and, ultimately, to climate change mitigation. An approach for estimating greenhouse gas emission reductions following rewetting, applicable to national and regional accounting, as well as to specific rewetting projects, is presented. It includes a methodology for determining effectively rewetted areas that can be considered wetlands, the application of IPCC greenhouse gas emission factors to said sites, and an uncertainty assessment. Starting from 2020 the Russian Federation National Report of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gasses not controlled by the Montreal Protocol utilised this approach in its inclusion of rewetted peatlands. An assessment of greenhouse gas emission reductions is presented using the example of a 1500 ha section of a peatland within the Fire Hazardous Peatland Rewetting Programme in Moscow Oblast (2010–2013). CO₂ emission reductions were cumulatively 33.4 thous. t by 2022 (taking into account nitrous oxide fluxes, dissolved organic carbon removal and increased CH₄ emissions—20 thous. t CO₂-eq.) and are projected to reach almost 113 (68) thous. t by 2050. Greenhouse gas emission reductions not yet included as well as possible ways of accounting for them in the future are also noted.

The article discusses the key problems and conditions for the successful development of the nature-based offset projects (NBOPs) in Russia. The conditions for the successful entry of verified carbon units from Russian nature-based offset projects into the global market were determined considering the state and prospects for development of global carbon markets. The key limitations for the national carbon market for offsets are presented: the lack of internal economic incentives for companies to buy carbon units and to invest in Russian NBOPs; the lack of national methodologies for the NBOPs; legal restrictions for land-use; lack of available tools for assessing costs and profitability of NBOPs on given land plots; failures of carbon market regulation under the Sakhalin experiment. The limitations of the narrow agency-based approach to the development of NBOPs are shown. These limitations result in inconsistent decisions that do not fit real conditions in the global market. It is necessary to create a competence center to solve the issues of the NBOPs from specific methodologies of individual projects to science-based assessments of their total potential in Russia. Two scenarios of the use of NBOPs for decarbonization of the Russian economy are analyzed. Scenario 1 assumes large-scale sale of carbon units generated in Russian in foreign markets in order to maximize mid-term profit. Scenario 2 assumes the use of carbon units generated in Russian NBOPs mainly by Russian companies to achieve net zero by 2060. A realistic and balanced strategy assumes that the key buyers of carbon credits from Russian NBOPs in the first stage should be export-oriented Russian companies that can use these credits to reduce the carbon footprint of their products and implement corporate climate strategies.