The Time Value of Carbon and Carbon Storage

The paper examines the value of temporary carbon storage and how it informs policy design for greenhouse gas accounting and biological offsets, specifically using social cost of carbon estimates to determine equivalence ratios between permanent and temporary offsets.

• The analysis indicates that physical carbon discount rates used for carbon accounting might be lower than the social discount rates typically applied in intergenerational analyses.
• Using social cost of carbon estimates to define equivalence between permanent and temporary agricultural offsets results in equivalence ratios ranging from approximately 2 to 30, contingent on the contract length and the discount rate applied.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). The Time Value of Carbon and Carbon Storage. https://www.wri.org/research/time-value-carbon-and-carbon-storage

Chicago

World Resources Institute. The Time Value of Carbon and Carbon Storage. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/time-value-carbon-and-carbon-storage.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=The Time Value of Carbon and Carbon Storage |url=https://www.wri.org/research/time-value-carbon-and-carbon-storage |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendtime, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{The Time Value of Carbon and Carbon Storage}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/time-value-carbon-and-carbon-storage}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }