REDD+ policy options: Including forests in an international climate change agreement

Abstract

We an overview of the role of tropical forests in the international efforts to negotiate a new global climate treaty. Under the existing treaty, the Kyoto Protocol and its “flexible mechanisms” - particularly the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) - have succeeded in building a billion dollar market for emission reduction projects in developing countries. The role of forests and land use in those markets has been a major source of controversy, and debate however. Owing, in part, to concerns about a focus on forests taking pressure off of other industrial emissions, only afforestation and reforestation projects can be included under the CDM with deforestation and degradation efforts ineligible. However, increasing political support following the “2007 Bali Action Plan” for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), which was spearheaded by developing countries themselves, as well as scientific evidence about the current emissions from tropical forests surpassing those of the global transportation sector has led to a consensus that a post Kyoto architecture will expand to include forest activities excluded under the CDM. The positions taken by different countries on what is now referred to as “REDD+” are often explained by the condition, and state, of their own forests. The overarching issues to be decided in developing the framework of a REDD+ mechanism include: the scope of the forestry activities to be covered; the scale of accounting for forestry activities and the baseline for measuring reference emissions levels; the type of financing to be provided for REDD+ activities; how to address fundamental issues of capacity and governance; and the consideration of co-benefits. Many of these remain contentious so that the role of REDD+ in addressing tropical forest challenges remains uncertain Despite the many different interests of the countries seeking to take part in a REDD+ mechanism and their different positions, it is possible summarize what is known and what is not known about the key components of a REDD+ mechanism and where the debate stands on these issues as of the fall of 2010.