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Forest carbon protocols underestimate climate-driven carbon loss risks

Published Article

United States

Publication date: May 19, 2026

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This research provides a data-driven way to find more stable places across the United States for investing in forests as climate solutions. It estimated the likelihood of a “reversal” occurring, which is a 10% or greater loss of carbon. Some locations like Ohio and New York are unlikely to face areversal, whereas other locations like the Rockies and parts of California have a much higher risk.

Research like this is an important step forward in enabling more robust and efficient decisions around where and how to invest in forest carbon.

Subject Tags

  • Natural climate solutions
  • Forest
  • Carbon markets

Abstract

Although the reduction of fossil fuel emissions remains of the utmost importance to mitigate climate change, maintaining and enhancing carbon sinks in forests have been widely promoted as nature-based climate solutions. However, disturbances that could result in losses of forest carbon stocks are poorly accounted for when estimating the potential role of forests in climate mitigation. This makes it difficult to appropriately size ‘buffer pools’: a mechanism designed to compensate for unintended carbon losses in carbon crediting projects. Here we use forest inventory, satellite data, disturbance modelling and machine learning to map reversal (carbon loss) risk in the contiguous United States (CONUS) from natural disturbance. Across CONUS forests, we show that climate change increases the 100-year risk of carbon losses from natural disturbance, particularly in California and the Intermountain West. The current buffer pool of the largest CONUS forest climate mitigation program is likely too small by an average factor of 6.3, and this could range from 2.2- to 8.0- fold too small when considering uncertainties around future climate scenarios, disturbance severity and other carbon pools. We provide spatially explicit maps of the long-term risks to forest carbon losses from natural disturbances, which highlight that current methodologies used for constructing carbon offset buffer pools require revisions to succeed under climate change.

Citation

Chao Wu, Grayson Badgley, Michael L. Goulden, James T. Randerson, Anna T. Trugman, Jonathan A. Wang, Linqing Yang, Nezha Acil, Susan C. Cook-Patton, Danny Cullenward, Steven J. Davis, Christopher A. Williams, & William R. L. Anderegg

Key Takeaways

  • Carbon losses can and do occur due to natural disturbances like fire and drought, but these risks vary across the landscape. And many forests retain significant carbon and recover over time.
  • This research highlights opportunities to further strengthen approaches like buffer pools, alongside improved siting, active forest management, and continued refinement of risk management tools
  • The results are primarily relevant to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) program, but highlight the importance of accounting for future climate when planning any carbon project.
  • CARB is on the right track with multiple mechanisms for dealing with risk. With more science and adjustments to the protocol, we can increasingly refine our ability to deal with risk.

TNC Authors

  • Susan Cook-Patton, PhD
    Lead Reforestation Scientist
    The Nature Conservancy

Northern Red Oak
Northern Red Oak One of the Midwest's most common native oak trees, northern red oaks host nearly 900 species of caterpillars, providing crucial food for diverse species of birds. © Jason Whalen

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TNC author Dr. Susan Cook-Patton explains how science-based strategies help manage durability risk in carbon-crediting Natural Climate Solutions.