Assessing the Economic Approaches to Climate-forest Policies: a Critical Survey

The linkage between global climate change and forests have assumed political prominence as forest sinks are now acknowledged as a means for off-setting carbon dioxide (CO,) emissions under the Kyoto Protocol targets. As such, policies to stimulate forest carbon sequestration in an open economy will require varying levels of economic information to allow for decisions that are both eficient and sustainable. This paper reviews the various economic approaches that have been recently used to examine the impacts of climate-forest policies, and discusses their usefulness for policy analysis. A suite of integrated economic-ecologic models is also reviewed to contrast with the shortcomings of static single sector studies, and a series of guidelines for future integrated research in this area are highlighted.