Showing papers by "Yufang Jin published in 2018"

Global cost estimates of forest climate mitigation with albedo: a new integrative policy approach

Abstract: Climate changemitigation policies have usually considered forest-based actions as cheap and fast options to reduceCO2 concentration in the atmosphere and slowdown global warming.Most economic analyses, however, have ignored the effects of these actions on land surface albedo and the resulting effect on energy balance and temperature. This study estimates themarginal cost of forest mitigation associatedwith both carbon sequestration and albedo change, by introducing regional and forest-specific albedo information in a global dynamic forestrymodel. Our analysis indicates that traditional forest sequestration policies have underestimated the costs of climatemitigation, driving forest-based actions in regionswhere subsequent changes in albedo are significant. To reduce this inefficiency, this paper proposes a novel approachwhere both carbon sequestration and albedo effect are incorporated into pricing. Our results suggest that, under the same carbon price path, the integrative policy provides greater net globalmitigation in absolute terms and per hectare of forest, and thus it ismore efficient and less intrusive than the traditional policy.