Forestry - WITCH

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Model Documentation - WITCH

Corresponding documentation
Previous versions
Model information
Model link
Institution European Institute on Economics and the Environment (RFF-CMCC EIEE), Italy, http://www.eiee.org.
Solution concept General equilibrium (closed economy)
Solution method Optimization
Anticipation

Forestry is an important contributor of CO2 emissions and, similarly to non-CO 2 gases, it might
provide relatively convenient abatement opportunities. Forestry sector models differ substantially
from energy-economy ones, so that normally the interaction is solved via soft link (e.g. iterative)
coupling. WITCH is enhanced with baseline emissions and supply mitigation curves for reduced
deforestation. The focus is on REDD given its predominant role in CO2 emissions and the policy
importance of this option as stressed in the 2007 Bali Action Plan.

Baseline emissions are provided by the Brent Sohngen GTM model. REDD supply mitigation cost
curves have been built and made suitable to be incorporated in the WITCH model.
Two versions of abatement cost curves have been incorporated in the model representing two
extreme cases. The first version includes abatement curves for the whole century for the Brazilian
tropical forest only and have been developed using Brazil?s data from the Woods Hole Research
Center. A second version includes abatement curves for all world tropical forests,
based on the Global Timber Model of Brent Sohngen, Ohio State University, used within
the Energy Modeling Forum 21 and data from the IIASA cluster model.