Summary/Abstract
This report summarizes mitigating options involving US forests and examines policies relating to forests’ role in climate change. It provides a survey of carbon benefits from wood substitution, biomass substitution, wildfire behavior modification, and avoided land use change. The report details how wood products from sequestering forests can have a large carbon benefit over products from more carbon intensive industries, such as steel and concrete.
The report also recommends possible policy measures to guide effective climate change mitigation through forests and forest management, addressing existing and potential carbon trading markets, opportunities for renewable energy to contribute to mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and strategies to minimize the vulnerability and promote adaptation of forests to impacts from climate change.