Different accounting approaches to harvested wood products (HWP) in a local greenhouse gas inventory

At present there are several different approaches for reporting the storage of carbon in wood products and its possible subsequent release as CO2. The 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories allow one to choose four different accounting approaches to harvested wood products (HWP). Indeed, there is no international agreement on the methods to be used in national greenhouse gas emission inventories yet. These approaches differ by the criterion adopted for the allocation of the emissions derived from the carbon stock loss with the harvest from the nation where the wood is harvested and the nation where the wood is utilized and for the wood use. Therefore, reported national carbon emissions differ according to the accounting approach used, and the implications of each accounting approach vary for different countries. HWP become a very sensitive emissions category when the greenhouse gas inventory is applied to a local territorial system, if the volume of HWP exchanged is relevant. This paper investigates two different accounting approaches for fuel wood applied to the Greenhouse Gas Inventory of Siena Province, Italy, developed for the year 2006. The first approach follows Tier 1 of the 2006 IPCC methodologies subtracting the entire HWP carbon content in the inventory year. In the second approach we try to allocate the carbon loss with the HWP according to the actual use and users. The aim of this paper is to determine whether different approaches provide distinctive incentives to reach major policy goals related to climate. © 2009 WIT Press