Program D Student Profiles

Frank Jotzo
Joanne Nightingale
Carrie Sonneborn
Susanne Thulin

Frank Jotzo

Economic, environmental and institutional implications of climate change policies

PhD research at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES), Australian National University

Supervisors and advisors: Dr Jack Pezzey (main supervisor), Dr Quentin Grafton, Dr Rodney Keenan, Dr Budy Resosudarmo and Dr Merrilyn Wasson.

The current design of global institutions for climate change mitigation will need to evolve considerably if the world is to achieve the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that are needed to mitigate global warming and its impacts. Concerns about equity as well as cost efficiency need to be addressed in order to overcome countries’ reluctance to making commitments to protect the atmosphere as a global commons.

The scope for greenhouse gas reduction action under the Kyoto Protocol’s project-based Clean Development Mechanism is limited – for example, it provides no incentives to slow tropical deforestation. Non-binding emissions targets for developing countries hold promise to facilitate broader participation in a future international agreement, yet institutional constraints as well as political considerations are likely to preclude many countries from taking on targets. A new mechanism for financing mitigation action for specific emission sources in developing countries could bridge the gap between project-based systems and national commitments, and could be linked to local environmental and development objectives.

Tthese issues are explored from an environmental economics perspective and apply them to Indonesia, which provides a rich and challenging case study. The mechanism design issues are analysed in the context of Indonesia's emission reduction potential, with particular emphasis on land-use change and forestry.

Link to personal webpage at CRES (with a CV and publications list): http://cres.anu.edu.au/~jotzo/

Joanne Nightingale

Simulating & monitoring terrestrial C fluxes in tropical forests

Supervisors: Dr Stuart Phinn, Dr Michael Hill

Interest in the global carbon cycle has escalated in recent years due to the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, climate change protocols, improved satellite data as well as ecosystem and general circulation models providing accurate estimates of biophysical processes. Understanding the changes currently being observed and changes likely to occur in the future requires accurate ecosystem level information on the flows of carbon in the Earth system. The main objective of my research is to develop and evaluate a scenario-based carbon accounting system for tropical forest environments in Australia by integrating an ecosystem process model, remotely sensed data and field measurements. Tropical forests are among the most important and least monitored of all environments. They cover a large proportion of the terrestrial biosphere and are amongst the most rapidly developing and ecologically diverse ecosystems in the world. Research into quantifying energy and flux exchanges with the atmosphere within these environments is essential for understanding their role in the global carbon budget and how they will respond to anthropogenically induced changes in climate.

Process-based terrestrial ecosystem models integrating remotely sensed estimates of biophysical variables are needed to extend knowledge on the interactions between the biosphere and atmosphere within various ecosystems and provide a complete and consistent view of global biospheric function. Remotely sensed data will provide a basis for monitoring changes in land-cover / use, biomass, structure, productivity and other radiative exchange processes. These data sets will along with spatially explicit climate and environmental data for the wet tropics bioregion of North Queensland will provide the input into the 3-PG(S) (Physiological Principles Predicting Growth - using Satellite data) ecosystem process model. Modelling will be initially conducted over a period of one year (April 2001 - April 2002) coinciding with the commencement of flux data collection at the canopy crane site in April 2001. The ability of 3-PG(S) to capture environmental and ecological controls on the water and carbon cycle within the wet tropics will be assessed by comparing modelled NPP and gross primary productivity (GPP) against in situ flux measurements of net ecosystem exchange (NEE). Additionally, field / inventory and remotely sensed data sets including forest structural characteristics as well above-ground biomass will be incorporated to validate assessments of forest growth. Output from 3-PG(S) will then be used to simulate forest growth and productivity within the bioregion under various climate and land use change scenarios.

Carrie Sonneborn

Industry capacity building with respect to market-based approaches to GHG reduction

Five Industry Roundtables on greenhouse and market-based approaches

Carrie Sonneborn, a CRCGA research grant recipient, has been based at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado as a PhD intern. As a key part of her data collection she organized and facilitated five Industry Roundtables (Washington DC, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Houston) during the period from September 2002 - January 2003. Hosted by various local government, industry and NGOs, these events involved nearly 100 industry representatives in total, primarily from the fossil fuel sector.

The purpose of the Roundtables was to collect industry views on the changes needed for companies to utilize market-based approaches, e.g. emissions trading, to greenhouse gas reduction. The focus was on internal capacity building but information collected also addressed the policy and market environment conditions that would incentivize industry to reduce greenhouse gases.

The data will feed into the development of a framework and model for industry capacity building in the use of market-based approaches for greenhouse gas reduction. The data from the five US Roundtables compliments five Australian Roundtables conducted by Ms. Sonneborn in 2001.

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Susanne Thulin

Remote sensing of pasture for carbon implications