Talk by Andrew Moxey as part of VNN peatland workshop, Leeds 18th January 2012

1. Cost Effectiveness of peatland
management & restoration
Andrew Moxey
“VNN workshop on assessing &
valuing peatland ecosystem services”
Presentation on 18/01/2012, Leeds

2. Basic premise: marbles in jars
• Carbon storage in peatlands is significant
• Degradation leads to emissions
• Avoid emissions by avoiding/repairing degradation
• Also maintain/enhance sequestration (+ co-benefits)
• Reduce need for other mitigation activities

3. But, not costless exercises
• Up-front capital costs of restoration
• On-going management (& monitoring) costs
• Displaced activities: opportunity costs
• (Possibly) land acquisition costs
• Cost-effectiveness vs. other mitigation options?

4. An illustrative upland example
• Upland grip blocking costs c.£240/ha upfront
• c.52t CO2e/ha net emission savings over 20 years
• c.£450/ha management & monitoring costs
• Negligible opportunity & land acquisition costs
• c.£13/t CO2e for restoration by grip blocking

5. Another illustrative upland example
• Conservation of near-natural upland site
• c.72t CO2e/ha net emission savings over 20 years
• c.£450/ha management & monitoring costs
• Negligible opportunity & land acquisition costs
• c.£6/t CO2e for maintaining a near-natural site

6. Comparable mitigation options?
£80 11
£60
£40 5
4
2.2 2.5 2.2 2.2
£20
1.5
0.5
mt CO2
£/tC02
Cost
£0
Abatement
-£20
-£40
-£60
-£80

7. Costs of inaction?
• e.g. Not grip-blocking c.2.2mt to address
• Greater reliance on other mitigation options
• £/t CO2e cost difference depends on options used
• e.g. c.+£20m if forestry, c.+£90m if biogas?
• But: capacity of other options? missed targets?

8. But, assumption-dependent
• Net emissions from:
– a near-natural site?
– a degraded site?
– a restored site?
• Temporal profile and duration of net emissions?
• Spatial variation of costs across sites?
• Uptake?

9. Restoration effectiveness & costs
• Generalisable or always site-specific?
• Different site conditions
• Different techniques & management requirements
• Scale and halo effects of size of area considered
• Non-negligible opportunity costs?

10. Opportunity costs
• Currently generally low for upland agriculture
• Higher for lowland agriculture/horticulture
• But , vary with:
– Site conditions
– Farming structure
– Policy support (e.g. subsidies, regulatory criteria e.g. “active farmer”?)
– Market conditions
• Forestry? Renewables? Recreation?

11. What’s needed?
• Monitoring to establish baseline conditions
(likely to be expensive unless proxy indicators used)
• Collate conservation & restoration trial data
(difficult given spatial variation & time-lags)
• More detailed assessment of opportunity costs
(cost-effectiveness sums; incentive design issues)
• Consideration of place in mitigation tool-kit
(relative cost-effectiveness; costs of inaction)

12. Conclusions
• Upland marble jars probably cost-effective
(...relative position in tool-kit & costs of inaction)
• But, likely to vary spatially & temporally
• So, targeting needs better geographic data on:
– net emissions before & after degradation/restoration
– costs of restoration & maintenance (& monitoring)
– timing & duration of actions and effects