A research centre by the National University of Singapore (NUS) has launched a new scenario-modelling facility that aims to accelerate regional cooperation on nature-based carbon projects across Southeast Asia.
The $1 million NUS Decision Theatre allows users to adjust various parameters, including type of carbon credit, participating countries, carbon price, project duration and more, to calculate the economic potential and co-benefits of launching a carbon project at a specific site.
This allows groups of users, such as policymakers, investors and carbon project developers, to play out different scenarios and identify the best way to source nature-based carbon credits or establish new projects, says the NUS’s Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions (CNCS) on Nov 30.
According to CNCS, this reduces the need for a “wait-and-see” approach in response to changing conditions, enabling quicker action to protect Southeast Asia’s rich natural landscape.
The NUS Decision Theatre was launched at COP28 in Dubai in collaboration with Singapore Technologies Engineering S63 ’s (ST Engineering) satellite data and geospatial analytics business, ST Engineering Geo-Insights. Located within the University’s Kent Ridge campus, the modelling facility can also be used remotely.
It builds on the Carbon Prospecting Dashboard, which was first launched by CNCS and ST Engineering Geo-Insights at COP27 last year. The Dashboard highlights areas where carbon emissions can be avoided by protecting threatened tropical forests and mangroves, and the potential revenue that can be raised from the sale of carbon credits from such sites.
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However, the Dashboard provides only an overview of the economic potential of carbon credits that can be sold from avoided deforestation projects. In reality, due to changing market or policy conditions, these credits may not be available for other countries to purchase to meet their climate targets under the Paris Agreement, says the research centre.
Solving three uncertainties
One area of uncertainty about nature-based carbon projects lies in national policies that control the quantity of carbon credits available for international trading. For example, some countries may want to count their forest protection or restoration efforts toward meeting their own climate change targets.
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Another uncertainty is the type of carbon credit that can be used to meet national climate targets under the Paris Agreement.
Currently, most credits in the global carbon markets are from projects that protect threatened forests. However, discussions are ongoing as to whether such protection credits should continue to be used for meeting national targets, due to concerns over their environmental integrity, according to the research centre.
In addition, the jury is still out on whether credits from non-threatened forests, or “high-forest, low-deforestation” (HFLD) regions, should be allowed for use in meeting national targets.
Currently, HFLD credits are not yet tradable in the market, but they are available on the NUS Decision Theatre for users to model future scenarios in which they are.
The NUS Decision Theatre addresses all these uncertainties by mapping out three different carbon credit types — protection, restoration and HFLD credits — and the share of each type of credit from the 10 Southeast Asian countries.
According to NUS, the interactive platform allows users to adjust the proportion of nature-based carbon credits that each of the countries allocates for international trade. “This allows for rapid calculations of the size of the region’s pool of carbon credits available for trading. It also helps users narrow down locations to source for compliant carbon credits, identify possible sites for establishing carbon projects and calculate their potential return of investment.”
Professor Koh Lian Pin, associate vice president and chief sustainability scientist at NUS, says the NUS Decision Theatre will enable stakeholders, such as countries, businesses and carbon project developers, to collaborate. “[They can] come together to work through the different scenarios and trade-offs on how to protect nature in Southeast Asia to meet various goals, whether it be their nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement, voluntary net-zero pledges, or other climate goals.”
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Koh, who is also director of CNCS, adds: “Having a platform to model the different scenarios will help to reduce the ambiguity involved in the decision-making process and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of cross-border carbon credit trading, while also creating new economic opportunities.”
Photos: Corporate Communications, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore
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