A Supply Curve for Forest-Based CO₂ Removal

Sergio L. Franklin and Robert Pindyck

No 32207, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Forestation is viewed as an important means of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere and thereby reducing net CO₂ emissions. But how much CO₂ can be removed, and at what cost? Focusing on forested and forestable areas in South America, and using spatially disaggregated data, we estimate a supply curve for forest-based atmospheric CO₂ removal. The supply curve traces out the marginal cost of removing a metric ton of CO₂ as a function of total annual CO₂ removal. Each point on the curve corresponds to a specific location, and accounts for land opportunity costs as well as costs of tree planting and maintenance. We show that over a billion tons of CO₂ can be removed annually via forestation at a cost below $45 per ton, and about 2.5 billion tons can be removed at a cost below $90 per ton. The supply curve applies to only South America, but with sufficient data could be extended to the entire world.

JEL-codes: C6 Q50 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
Note: EEE PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32207.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32207

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32207
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().