1. Keith Paustian Colorado State University
Draft modeling priorities agenda, potential next steps to support policy and advancing case study approach.
Keith Paustian
Colorado State University

2. What to do?

4. Take a poll! Stratified random sample Stratum Population Draw Returns
Ecologists
Economists (1)
Policy Analyst

5. Survey questions Ecologists/Economists Policy people:
You’re submitting to a new grants program to ‘improve methods for quantification/economic analysis of carbon sequestration’ – write the title of your proposal and list the top three objectives/questions.
Policy people:
You’re administering a new grants program to ‘support analysis and implementation of policy to increase carbon sequestration’ – write the top three issues to be addressed in the RFP.

6. Results - Ecologist
‘Detecting soil C accumulation using satellite imagery’
National network of sites, w/ standardized methods of measuring soil C stock changes f(mgmt).
Improved algorithms for remote sensing detection of management change/C stock change.
Link changes in management and C stocks with RS.

7. Results - Economist
Develop confidence intervals for economic outcomes.
Evaluation of model sensitivity to uncertain/variable parameters in coupled economic-biophysical models.
Identify barriers to adoption of C sequestering technology – ‘costs of adaptation’.

8. Results – Policy people
Support pilots/case studies:
Methods to assess likelihood of projects actually delivering promised tons?
How to quantify leakage and baseline?
Assessment of barriers.
How to quantify N2O?
What is the scale of data needed to support a) voluntary programs vs b) cap-based trading?

9. Results – Policy (cont.)
How should domestic C policies be integrated with non-climate policies?
Integrated assessment methods to examine tradeoffs for GHG mitigation, water, biodiversity, etc.
Gauging effectiveness, administrative feasibility, minimizing perverse incentives.
Policy tradeoffs of having forest/ag sector policies that are not directly linked to energy sector.

10. Other strawmen Biophysical
Benchmarks for on-the-ground measurements of soil C changes (in the US).
Methods to develop reliable information on management practices at disaggregated scales (e.g. fertilization, manuring tillage).
Improved assessment of net GHG impacts and non-GHG co-benefits/co-costs.

11. Strawmen (cont.) Economic
Do we have/are we using the right cost data to estimate supply curves? (e.g.‘aggregate data problem’ for agriculture, realistic biophysical constraints for afforestation)
How to better incorporate impacts of ‘non-profit-maximizing’ behavior.
‘Model validation’ – how well can our integrated models predict observed changes in practices for known policy and economic perturbations in the past.

12. Strawmen (cont.) Policy
Cross-sectoral analysis of mitigation options, with the ‘Double Trinity’ applied across all sectors – how do LULUCF options look on ‘a level playing field’?
What are the outcomes for GHG mitigation from policies that ‘bundle’ environmental services?
Is there a serious role for policy evaluation addressing the long-term, intergenerational impacts of climate change?