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Abstract
Under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol, forest
projects can receive returns for carbon sequestration via two crediting instruments:
temporary or long-term certified emission reductions (tCERs or lCERs). This study
shows the effect of lCERs on the private owner’s forest rotation intervals decision and
carbon credit generation in afforestation and reforestation projects. A credit verification
mechanism with a harvest penalty implemented under the lCERs policy distorts
the timber harvesting decision and the corresponding carbon credit supply. Two
opposing incentives are created by the lCERs mechanism which leads to either longer
or shorter rotations compared to the Faustmann rotation, depending on which incentive
prevails. Our numerical results show that both lCERs and tCERs seem to have
similar impacts on harvesting incentives, but the resulting carbon supply differs among
the instruments owing to the credit verification mechanism. The tCERs carbon supply
curve is monotonically increasing in the carbon price, while a lCERs carbon supply is
non-monotonic and may have a backward bending region over a range of carbon
prices.