Framework Convention on Climate Change

Climate is a critical factor affecting forest ecosystems and their capacity to produce goods and services. This chapter reviews published studies of climate-forest relationships with emphasis on indications and mechanisms of change during recent decades. Effects of climate change on forests depend on ecosystem-specific factors including human activities, natural processes, and several dimensions of climate (temperature, drought, wind, etc.). Indications of recent climate-related changes in ecosystem processes are stronger in boreal forests than in other domains. In contrast, constraints on adaptive capacity that increase vulnerability to climate change are generally more severe in subtropical and tropical forests than in temperate and boreal domains. Available information is not sufficient to support a quantitative assessment of the ecological, social and economic consequences of recent forest responses to human influences on climate. The complexity of natural and human systems is a formidable barrier to impact quantification and predictability. For example, effects of land use practices and invasive species can overshadow and interact with effects of climate change. Nevertheless, substantial progress has been made in defining mechanisms of climate-change impacts on forest ecosystems. Knowledge of impact mechanisms enables identification and mitigation of some of the conditions that increase vulnerability to climate change in the forest sector.

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Adaptation of forests and people to climate change - a global assessment report.

In the period between the First and Second World Wars there was a marked deterioration in international economic relations. In the 1920s an attempt was made to go back to ‘normal’ conditions. This meant the gold standard, as far as international monetary co-operation is concerned. An attempt was also made to organise world trade on a liberal basis.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Recent work on global patterns of deforestation has shown that countries with high per capita GDP or low remaining forest cover are more likely to be experiencing afforestation than deforestation. Here, I show that the relationship is more complex than previously described, because the effect of one variable is dependent upon the value of the other. As a result, high-income nations exhibit the opposite response to disappearing forest cover than low-income nations. In an analysis of 103 countries, I found that high-income countries with low forest cover have the highest rates of afforestation, typically through the establishment of new plantations. In contrast, low-income countries with little forest are more likely to consume that remaining portion at a faster proportional rate than do low-income countries with more forest. Nations with large amounts of forest have approximately equal deforestation rates, regardless of national wealth. These results highlight for the first time that there is a strong interaction between forest cover and economic development that determines rates of forest change among nations.

Interaction effects between economic development and forest cover determine deforestation rates

Is health capital formation good for long-term economic growth? – Panel Granger-causality evidence for OECD countries

Foreign direct investments in the forest sector: implications for sustainable forest management in developed and developing countries

The main focus of efforts to mitigate climate change is on the avoidance of fossil fuel emissions. However, the Kyoto Protocol rules permit the use of forestry activities that create carbon offset ...

A Meta-Regression Analysis of Forest Carbon Offset Costs

The contingent-claims-based real options theory is used to value timber harvesting options in Ontario, Canada. Monthly prices from 1981 to 2006 are used for analysis, and different statistical tests, including structural breaks, are used to test the stationarity of prices. The tests show the presence of structural breaks and jumps in the price series. The price series is stationary after incorporating the structural breaks, and therefore a mean reversion with jumps process, and not geometric Brownian motion, is used to characterize the prices. The presence of structural breaks requires partitioning of the series into three subperiods. Results indicate that ignoring the structural breaks and jumps will lead to suboptimal investment decisions. Results also imply the need to revise even-volume harvesting and fixed rotation age policies in forestry for economically efficient decisions.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/27759708

Valuation of Timber Harvesting Options Using a Contingent Claims Approach

The paper presents an econometric analysis of spatial integration of the United States and Canadian newsprint markets as reflected in newsprint prices. It applies the Johansen multivariate cointegration procedure to test the law of one price for five regional markets (British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, US east, and US west) of newsprint using monthly data for 1988–2004. Preliminary data analysis shows that all price series are nonstationary I(1) processes. The hypothesis that the law of one price holds for all five regional newsprint markets simultaneously was not supported by the Johansen multivariate test. The law of one price was also tested for national markets, and it was found to hold between US west and US east newsprint prices. The results suggested that there is a single newsprint market in the United States, whereas there are several distinct newsprint markets in Canada.

The law of one price in the United States and Canadian newsprint markets

The paper examines the relationships between the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the forestry and forest products industry and host-country-specific factors that affect the spatial distribution of FDI. Data on Brazil and Chile are used to analyze the impact of market size, roundwood supply, and exports on FDI. The results indicate that the main motivation for FDI is market-seeking and resource-seeking, highlighting the role of domestic demand and sufficient supply of roundwood in multinational forestry companies' investment decisions. The results further imply that governments can use policies related to these factors to attract foreign investment into the forest sector in Brazil and Chile.

Susanna Laaksonen-Craig

Papers

Foreign direct investments in the forest sector: implications for sustainable forest management in developed and developing countries

A Meta-Regression Analysis of Forest Carbon Offset Costs

Valuation of Timber Harvesting Options Using a Contingent Claims Approach

The law of one price in the United States and Canadian newsprint markets

The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investments in Latin American Forestry and Forest Industry