1. Reporting and Accounting
Land Use and Land Resource
Phillip O’Brien p.obrien@epa.ie
Research Specialist
Climate Change Research Programme
NUIG

2. Outline
 UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol reporting
 Land Use resources and reporting
 Land Use Change in Ireland (historic)
 Carbon sequestration, long term considerations
 The future
 Conclusions

3. UNFCCC Reporting
Kyoto Protocol Accounting
 UNFCCC Reporting
 All anthropogenic emissions and sinks
 All years since 1990
 Kyoto Accounting
 Agreed sub-set of emissions and sinks
 Deforestation, Afforestation and reforestation Annex I countries
 Targets
 Additional measures since 1990
 Natural emissions and sinks are not included in either
 KP include mention of preservation of carbon stocks but only
deforestation is accounted.

4. UNFCCC Reporting
Kyoto Protocol Accounting
Sector UNFCCC Kyoto Post Future
Protocol Kyoto
Energy Energy generation
Transport
Industry
Residential heating
Agriculture Enteric fermentation Challenging
Manure management to reflect
Agricultural Soils behaviour
change
Land Use, Land Use Forestry Afforestation Forest Forest
Change and Forestry management management
Cropland Cropland Cropland
Grassland Grazing land Grazing land
Wetlands Wetlands
Settlements
Other lands

5. Impacts, Reporting and Accounting
of Mitigation Options
Energy Crops (forestry, biomass crops, grass)
Action Sector Mitigation Inventory Accounting
Energy Crops Energy/ Fossil fuel Fossil fuel use Energy sector,
Transport/ replacement reduction transport,
Residential residential heating
Energy Crops Agriculture Displacement of Reduced CH4 and Agricultural
livestock N2O emissions emissions
emissions
Energy Crops Land Use Increased net Above & below Optional, but
Change and biomass ground biomass difficult
Forestry
Energy Crops Land Use Enhanced soil Change in soil carbon Optional, but
Change and carbon stocks difficult
Forestry sequestration Difficult to measure

6. Impacts, Reporting and Accounting
of Mitigation Options
Improved management of peatlands
Including Restoration of ecosystem function to degraded peatlands
Action Sector Mitigation Inventory Accounting
Peatland Energy Reduced use of peat Direct impact on Energy
management fuels, replace with fossil fuels residential heating
renewable or higher emissions
efficiency fossil fuel
Peatland Land Use Increased net biomass Above & below Uncertain,
management Change and (depending on ground biomass Possibly post Kyoto
Forestry previous condition) Difficult to measure
Peatland Land Use Enhanced soil carbon Change in soil Uncertain,
management Change and sequestration carbon stocks Possibly post Kyoto
Forestry Difficult to measure

7. Land Use Change in Ireland
The pattern of changing land use in Ireland.
Agricultural and Wetlands have been converted to forestry and, a lesser extent, to Settlement.
~250,000ha
Agricultural Lands
Afforestation
Unmanaged wetlands Exploited Wetlands Settlements

8. Afforestation contribution to Sequestration
 Afforestation towards a target of
~20% land cover by 2050
 Continued sequestration out to
2100
 Finite sequestration capacity
 Saturation 2100

9. Potential contribution of Soil Carbon
Sequestration
 3 million hectares
managed grassland
 Approx. 1 tC ha-1 yr-1
 Land use change to
Forestry
 Saturation of soil sink over
100 years
 Significant reduction in
sink by 2050

10. The Future
Inventory rules will change through negotiation
 Especially in the area of Land Use
Reporting
 Integration of Agriculture and LULUCF
 Agriculture Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU)
Accounting
 Mandatory new activities
 Forest Management
 Grassland; Cropland; Wetland management, Revegetation

11. Conclusions
 Research is required to address the measurement difficulties for
carbon sequestration
 Ireland needs to pay attention to developments in international
negotiations on accounting
 In the long term, forestry and soil are likely to saturate
 May be enhanced and extended with management
 Need to avoid over-reliance on the “sink” component