# oka.model Whitepaper

## Summary

:::danger
To be written
:::

### Executive Summary

:::danger
To be written
:::

### Technical Summary

:::danger
To be written
:::

## Prior: What are Carbon Credits actually?

**tldr:** 1 unit of Carbon Credit = 1 ton less of GHG on the atmosphere that can be causally atributed to an limited-duration project.

[From Verra](https://verra.org/faq/)

### What are Credits

"Emission reductions or carbon removals in excess of the baseline level are eligible to generate a carbon credit."

"Carbon standards assure the credibility and high quality of carbon credits issued for trading."

"Projects seeking to get certified in a reputable standards program follow a rigorous assessment process to generate carbon offsets that are additional, accurately calculated, permanent, not claimed by another entity, and have not caused any social or environmental harm."

### What are Offsets

"A carbon offset represents a reduction or removal of one metric tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere that is used to compensate for emissions that occur elsewhere."

"Carbon offsets can be generated by the reduction or removal of any greenhouse gas (GHG) known to cause climate change, but carbon dioxide is used as the point of reference."

"A carbon offset can be generated through a number of activities that reduce or remove emissions."

### Best Practices for Credits

"To ensure that the emission reductions or removals are real and are accounted for accurately, they need to be certified under a reputable greenhouse gas (GHG) crediting program. All reputable GHG crediting programs embrace a number of best practices that underpin the credibility"

"All VCS-approved methodologies must include a detailed approach for determining the additionality of a specific project activity."

"Additionality means that the reduction or removal of a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission arises from an activity that would not have occurred without the revenue from the sale of carbon credits"

"The baseline is the reference point against which a project’s emissions reductions or removals are measured. The baseline scenario represents the activities and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would occur in the absence of a project. Emission reductions or carbon removals in excess of the baseline level are considered additional and, thus, eligible to generate a carbon credit."

"The VCS Program requires all AFOLU projects to account for leakage. "

"Leakage refers to the concept that changes in land management in one place (e.g., decreasing deforestation in forest A) may shift the problem to another location (e.g., increasing deforestation in forest B). "

"The VCS Program requires all land-based projects to set aside a risk-adjusted percentage of the emission reductions and removals achieved, which are then placed into a global buffer pool."

## An Carbon Credit Model for NFTree: oka.model for Avoided Deforestation on the Amazon

### Goals

:::danger
To be written
:::

- To provide an streamlined experience for project creation & monitoring on common use cases
- To allow direct comparison between projects in terms of their specific methodology
- To enable lean carbon crediting processes.
- To be specific to the Avoided Deforestation on the Amazon as the GHG-generating process to be mitigated

### Terminology

- Carbon Stock Estimation
- $C_{\mathcal{S}, \mathcal{A}, T}(t) \in \mathbb{R_+}$: Future Estimate of Total Carbon Stock of type $T$ on area $\mathcal{A}$ and scenario $\mathcal{S}$ at instant $t$
- $C_{\mathcal{A}, T}(t) \in \mathbb{R_+}$: Historical Estimate of Total Carbon Stock of type $T$ on area $\mathcal{A}$
- Scenarios
- $\mathcal{S}_b$: Baseline Scenario
- $\mathcal{S}_p$: Project Intervention Scenario
- Areas:
- $\mathcal{A}_p$: Project Area
- $\mathcal{A}_r$: Reference Area
- $\mathcal{A}_l$: Leakage Belt Area
- Carbon Stock Types
- $T_1$:
- $T_2$

### Initialization Phase

#### Part 0 - Enforcing Consistency

:::danger
To be written
:::

#### Part 1 - Computing the Baseline Trajectory

:::danger
To be written
:::

$C_{\mathcal{S_b} \mathcal{A_r}, T}(t)$ for $t \in [t_{p, s}, t_{p, e}] = ...$

Envira Variables:

#### Part 2 - Computing the Intervention Trajectory

:::danger
To be written
:::

$C_{\mathcal{S_p} \mathcal{A_p}, T}(t)$ for $t \in [t_{p, s}, t_{p, e}] = ...$

Envira Variables:

#### Part 3 - Computing the Leakage Belt Area

:::danger
To be written
:::

$\mathcal{A_l} = ...$

$C_{\mathcal{S_p} \mathcal{A_l}, T}(t)$ for $t \in [t_{p, s}, t_{p, e}] = ...$

Envira Variables:

#### Part 4 - Computing the Intervention Effect

:::danger
To be written
:::

$\Sigma\Delta C_{p, b} = \int_{t_{p, s}}^{t_{p, e}} (C_{\mathcal{S_p} \mathcal{A_p}, T}(t) + C_{\mathcal{S_p} \mathcal{A_l}, T}(t) - C_{\mathcal{S_b} \mathcal{A_p}, T}(t) - C_{\mathcal{S_b} \mathcal{A_l}, T}(t))dt$

Envira Variables:

### Monitoring Phase

:::danger
To be written
:::

## Research Notes

:::info
This section should be removed from the Whitepaper once it is done
:::


### Reference Projects

- [Envira Amazonia](https://registry.verra.org/app/projectDetail/VCS/1382)
- [Jari Pará](https://registry.verra.org/app/projectDetail/VCS/1811)
- Methodology: VM0015
- Issuer: Biofilica
- Issue Date: 07 Oct 2019
- Vegetation source: IBGE 2012
- [Apresentação](https://www.biofilica.com.br/2020/redd/projetos-redd-jari-2020-web.pdf)
- Relatório de Monitoramento: [2019](https://www.biofilica.com.br/docs/redd/jari-para/monitoring-report/REDD-jari-para-vcs-monitoring-report-pt.pdf)
- Stakeholder Identification through an 4-criteria ruleset. Fast Participatory Diagnostic Workshops done for describing them.
- This project contains an exhaustive description for biodiversity / social impacts and initiatives surrouding the REDD project.
- Without-project Land Use Scenario and Additionality
- "For the determination of the without-project land use scenario (baseline scenario) the approved
methodology VCS VM0015 version 1.1 was used in conjunction with the VCS approved tool "VT0001 - Tool for the Demonstration and Assesment of Addicionality in VCS Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) Project Activities, "version 3.0." (p. 61)
- "The analysis of deforestation, agents, drivers and underlying causes, as well as the probable without-project land use scenarios were performed based on the baseline scenario, so further details are found in section 3.1.4 - Baseline Scenario." (p. 61)
- Legal Status / socioeconomic conditions acquired from SIGEF / INCRA 2019
- On Leakage Belt
- MN: Project + Leakage Area seems to be all the Private Properties on Pará Ref. Area. (p. 101)
- MN2: Leakage Belt seems to be mostly outside the forest
- Mobitility Analysis was chosen due to scarcity of data (p. 108)
- On Baseline
- Historical Deforestation Rate: 0.37% / yr (p. 101 [PRODES / INPE](http://terrabrasilis.dpi.inpe.br/downloads/)).
- MN: it is not clear what's the reference. Is is the Reference Region?
- On the Deforestation agents and drivers: it is not explicit how they were collected (p. 101). From VM0015 itself?
- Factor Variables: (p. 108)
- Distance
- Weight=1/2
- Deforestation Risk
- Weight=1/2
- There's supposedtly an Model for that (p. 106) that was defined a priori which combines several independent variables (road distance, topography, etc)
- CO2 stock estimation is done by extrapolating sample inventories and applying allometric equations
- Monitoring is done via Satellite. Field inspections "if needed"

- [Ecomapua Amazon](https://registry.verra.org/app/projectDetail/VCS/1094)
- Methodology: VM0015
- Issue: Sustainable Carbon
- Issue Date: 22 Feb 2013
- "The primary objective of the project is to avoid the unplanned deforestation (AUD) of an 86,269.84ha area within a private property owned by Ecomapuá Conservação Ltda. The present project will achieve predicted net reductions of 4,253.14ha of deforestation, and 2,170,138 tCO2e emissions over the 30 year project lifetime (01/01/2003 – 31/12/2032)"
- On Leakage Belt:
- "the leakage belt was defined by means of opportunity cost analysis." ... "Given that the principal causes of deforestation in the reference region generally overlap, due to the land-use dynamic explained in section 2.4 of the present VCS-PD, it was concluded that deforestation was lucrative for at least one product, namely timber."
- OCA is perfirmed by using Costs of Production from this 1997 Iamazon publication: https://imazon.org.br/PDFimazon/Portugues/serie%20amazonia/adroes-problemas-e-potencial-da-exploracao.pdf
- Note: there were some numerical assumptions without being properly referenced
- Note2: There were subjective calls on defining the exact location of the Leakage Belt
- On Prior Conditions
- Vegetaion was mapped based on SIVAM (???)
- Carbon Stocks were computed based on Biomass Values using an factor from [Nogueira et al. 2008.](https://repositorio.inpa.gov.br/bitstream/1/4959/2/Euler_Nogueira.pdf)

### Appendix