Funding research using climate change mitigation: The case of the Carbone boréal research infrastructure

Since 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has gathered research and produced reports to inform decision makers on climate change.Among crosscutting topics, ecosystem management and nature-based solutions (NBS) have received growing attention as they are readily available and relatively inexpensive.NBS are part of the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses economical sector [1].While carbon prices can reach up to USD100 t -1 CO 2 -eq, greenhouse gas (GHG) land-based mitigation can be achieved for less in agriculture (e.g.soil carbon management, agroforestry, soil biochar addition), forestry (e.g.afforestation, reforestation, decreased deforestation) and using other ecosystems (e.g.peatland and wetland restoration) [1].NBS have the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 8-14 Gt CO 2 -eq yr -1 between 2020-2050 [1], which represents 32-82% of the emission gap by 2030 to limit global warming between 1.5-2˚C by 2100 compared with the preindustrial era [2].In addition to CO 2 removal from the atmosphere, NBS also render valuable ecosystem services such as biodiversity conservation, water and nutrient cycling regulation and soil preservation [3][4][5][6].Several positive impacts on human well-being and sustainable development goals can also be achieved through NBS [1].One of the widely applied NBS is afforestation.Hence, numerous commitments have been pledged to plant billions of trees [7,8] but general concerns remain on the net efficiency relative to costs.Such afforestation efforts demand long-term research that must be financed accordingly but that does not match with conventional funding usual timeframes.One of the enticing prospects is in using offset markets to fund ecosystem conservation and rehabilitation projects, as recognized in the 2001 Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.However, claims of additional capture and permanence are subject to many inaccuracies and risks.While it is relatively simple to estimate the amount of carbon stored in trees, the dynamics of its accumulation and its conservation in ecosystems over time is more uncertain and must be assessed by combining modelling methods and field measurements.This is especially important and time sensitive in slow-growing forests such as the boreal forest where decades are necessary to confirm or invalidate the projections.This poses two main challenges: first, establishing study plots that can be monitored to answer specific questions over several decades; second, ensuring that research is funded for the duration, which is unusual at best for conventional research grant programs.

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