Forests within the Russian Federation are a critical component of the global carbon cycle. These forests are estimated to contain approximately 776 million hectares of forestland, or nearly 21 percent of the world’s total, and store 289.4 (±71.8) billion tonnes of carbon, or 28 percent of global carbon, in above and below-ground components. Historically, however, policy makers and scientists outside of Russia have had little access to data and information on the forest resources of Russia. Such data are vitally important for meeting the reporting requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and for assessing the potential of Russia’s forests and land use practices to enhance carbon storage above the levels expected to occur. Until now, few studies have investigated the economic potential for additional sequestration within the Russian Federation.

This report examines a number of issues related to forestry and forest carbon sequestration in the Russian Federation. It summarizes and synthesizes data and analytical results presented in a broader technical report developed by a team of Russian scientists (Zamolodchikov et al., 2005). The report is written for the international climate policy community, members of the Russian Federation government responsible for national reporting of forest carbon sinks, and members of the scientific community seeking a synthesized version of the longer technical report. The report’s primary purpose is to address and answer three questions highlighted below.

The results of our analysis suggest that Russia collects substantial data that can be used to estimate carbon fluxes (changes in carbon stocks) from forests. Ground-based inventories are used on 62 percent of forestland, and remotely sensed data have been used on an additional 31 percent of forestland. The data derived from these sources can be employed to estimate important variables for domestic and international reporting purposes, such as net carbon stock fluxes; fluxes on managed forestlands; and changes in carbon stocks from afforestation,  reforestation, and deforestation. In general, the data and methods are consistent with U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “Good Practice Guidance” (2003).

This report does, however, contain a number of recommendations that Russian analysts could adopt to reduce the uncertainty related to estimating carbon fluxes from land use change and forest management. For instance, Russian authorities could develop a more systematic forest inventory system that collects additional data, reduces the time between inventories, and provides for additional sampling in regions where remote sensing is used. In addition, because one of the major uncertainties in Russia revolves around carbon emissions from forest fires, Russian authorities could improve estimates of carbon fluxes arising from forest fires by applying remote sensing information on fire area and severity more broadly and combining this information with sampling data from burned areas. These methods would be particularly useful in regions where fire statistics are not currently kept.

Currently, Russia’s forestland produces a net carbon sink. There are 289.4 (±71.8) billion tonnes carbon equivalent stored in above- and below-ground pools of forestland. Recent data indicate that annual sequestration (positive changes in stocks) ranges from 40 to 120 million tonnes carbon equivalent per year,  depending on the methods used to estimate flux. This study used a deterministic forestry and land use model to project baseline carbon sequestration into the future. This modeled baseline projects that over the next decade, the positive net sequestration rates are likely to remain at current levels, estimated at 70 million tonnes of carbon per year until 2010. Net sequestration, however, is then projected to decline over a 20- to 40-year period. To put these numbers in context, current estimates of energy emissions in Russia are 411 million tonnes carbon equivalent per year (Secretariat of the UNFCCC, 2004).

3. What is the economic potential to sequester additional carbon on the Russian forest landscape as a climate mitigation option?

It may be possible to sequester up to 20 million tonnes carbon equivalent per year above the current sequestration rate over the next 80 years at a cost of less than $13 per tonne carbon equivalent. For higher costs of $100 per tonne, it appears possible to increase sequestration by 130 million tonnes per year for 100 years.

Given the results of our analysis of these questions, the final section of the report offers a number of recommendations related to data collection and analysis on forest carbon sequestration in the Russian Federation. These recommendations include the following:

• improving the collection of forestry and ecological data to increase the precision of measuring carbon stocks;
• updating inventory data in remote regions, including the collection of additional information and data on forest stocks and forest fires;
• developing a land use and carbon tracking system;
• improving land use modeling capabilities to provide projections of land use, land use change, and forest stocks;
• developing methods to value the opportunity costs of converting agricultural land to forests; and
• continuing to monitor results of existing carbon sequestration demonstration projects and developing additional case studies of carbon offset projects to fully evaluate the potential for implementing large-scale mitigation projects.

This report and the longer technical report on which it is based (Zamolodchikov et al., 2005) result from a unique collaboration between natural and social scientists from collaborating institutions in the Russian Federation and the United States. It is the first such effort to address these issues, and it improves our understanding of the scale and scope of Russian forests’ potential to mitigate the buildup of  greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere.