As concern over global climate change leads to policy activity in state, provincial, regional, and national governments, there are emerging efforts to define how forest carbon credit accounting rules will be structured. Several sets of rules have been published or are in development, including the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting Guidelines, the Chicago Climate Exchange Protocols, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the California Climate Action Registry, the Voluntary Carbon Standard, and the Western Climate Initiative.

A bi-national consensus standard could build on the existing efforts and facilitate development of uniform policies across North America that would enable forest landowners to participate in emerging climate programs. Such a standard, developed under a consensus standards development process accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) (http://www.ansi.org/) and Standards Council of Canada (SCC) (http://www.scc.ca/), could incorporate the technical knowledge of the forestry, carbon trading, and environmental communities into approaches that are scientifically sound, economically feasible, and environmentally positive. The benefits will accrue both to the forestry community and climate program administrators.