Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in an interview, said he doesn't accept that carbon emissions cause climate change. But he still wants the state to benefit from markets that have arisen to address the problem.
The companies wanting to sequester the carbon underground in the US generally want governments to take on the failure liabilities as soon as possible because the liability financials rapidly become astrological. Chemical bonding of the carbon with basalt seems to be the best sequestration method so far.
Trees set aside as carbon sinks are subject to fires, drought, infections, infestations, climate changes beyond their ability to adapt, limited life expectancies, poachers, vandals, and such.
In both cases, liability insurance payouts will be hard to turn into rapid recaptures of carbon caused by such carbon offset failures.
Forest carbon offset programs and other land use forest carbon offset programs have enormous problems with additionality. They often aren't really sequestering any more carbon than they would have without the program -- therefore are actually increasing climate impacts (because the companies that buy the offsets are actually emitting this supposedly offset CO2). This is baked into the way these "improved forest management" projects are counted, often allowing landowners to get credit simply for drawing boxes around relatively well-vegetated but uneconomic to log forests. This is because "baseline" calculations figuring out what would have happened without the offset program are incorrect. The California Air Resources board's program is the longest standing, and the subject of a lot of recent analysis that shows these problems:
Using remote sensing to quantify the additional climate benefits of California forest carbon offset projects
Most of the Alaska Native Corporations' projects are part of this program. Looking at the map of lands under credit through the California Air Resources Board program, it's hard to believe that all these lands were going to be logged otherwise:
I live near and have traveled through areas of forest supposedly providing carbon offsets. While it's understandable that Native corporation land owners enjoy making money for leaving their land sitting there (and the state would love to as well), there is definitely no way that logging/developing these lands was going to be economic, or that any more carbon is being sequestered than before the program began. The University of Alaska is also looking into the same thing, and Kachemak Bay Estuarine Research Reserve is trying to do it with peatlands. There are probably some such lands where offsets are actually real -- but they aren't the majority, and the programs set up to try and verify them are inadequate. The fact that Alaskans might benefit from a scam doesn't make it less of a scam. And due to the disproportionate impacts of climate change in northern latitudes, we don't really benefit in the end.
The EPA has actually issued two permits for Class VI carbon sequestration wells, both for ADM in Illinois (https://www.epa.gov/uic/class-vi-wells-permitted-epa). North Dakota and Wyoming have received primacy for their Class VI well programs and each of them have permitted several carbon sequestration well projects. Worldwide, there are about 30 active carbon sequestration projects.
The companies wanting to sequester the carbon underground in the US generally want governments to take on the failure liabilities as soon as possible because the liability financials rapidly become astrological. Chemical bonding of the carbon with basalt seems to be the best sequestration method so far.
Trees set aside as carbon sinks are subject to fires, drought, infections, infestations, climate changes beyond their ability to adapt, limited life expectancies, poachers, vandals, and such.
In both cases, liability insurance payouts will be hard to turn into rapid recaptures of carbon caused by such carbon offset failures.
Forest carbon offset programs and other land use forest carbon offset programs have enormous problems with additionality. They often aren't really sequestering any more carbon than they would have without the program -- therefore are actually increasing climate impacts (because the companies that buy the offsets are actually emitting this supposedly offset CO2). This is baked into the way these "improved forest management" projects are counted, often allowing landowners to get credit simply for drawing boxes around relatively well-vegetated but uneconomic to log forests. This is because "baseline" calculations figuring out what would have happened without the offset program are incorrect. The California Air Resources board's program is the longest standing, and the subject of a lot of recent analysis that shows these problems:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.15943
Systematic over-crediting in California's forest carbon offsets program
and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.16380
Using remote sensing to quantify the additional climate benefits of California forest carbon offset projects
Most of the Alaska Native Corporations' projects are part of this program. Looking at the map of lands under credit through the California Air Resources Board program, it's hard to believe that all these lands were going to be logged otherwise:
California Air Resources board credit map:
https://webmaps.arb.ca.gov/ARBOCIssuanceMap/
I live near and have traveled through areas of forest supposedly providing carbon offsets. While it's understandable that Native corporation land owners enjoy making money for leaving their land sitting there (and the state would love to as well), there is definitely no way that logging/developing these lands was going to be economic, or that any more carbon is being sequestered than before the program began. The University of Alaska is also looking into the same thing, and Kachemak Bay Estuarine Research Reserve is trying to do it with peatlands. There are probably some such lands where offsets are actually real -- but they aren't the majority, and the programs set up to try and verify them are inadequate. The fact that Alaskans might benefit from a scam doesn't make it less of a scam. And due to the disproportionate impacts of climate change in northern latitudes, we don't really benefit in the end.
The EPA has actually issued two permits for Class VI carbon sequestration wells, both for ADM in Illinois (https://www.epa.gov/uic/class-vi-wells-permitted-epa). North Dakota and Wyoming have received primacy for their Class VI well programs and each of them have permitted several carbon sequestration well projects. Worldwide, there are about 30 active carbon sequestration projects.