REDD+: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation

Forests play a double role in climate regulation. Deforestation and forest degradation release the carbon that is stored in trees into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and other gases. Scientists estimate that deforestation and forest degradation account for around 12 to 20 per cent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. But, in addition, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Studies suggest that 5 billion of the 32 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted annually by human activities—that's over 15 percent—are absorbed by forests.

So, when forests are damaged and destroyed we lose not only the carbon storage provided by the trees, releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we also forego the forests' ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It's a double loss.

Realising REDD+: National strategy and policy options PDF, 362 PAGES, 3.8 MB

Moving Ahead with REDD: Issues, options and implications PDF, 166 PAGES, 1.6 MB

Do Trees Grow on Money? The implications of deforestation research for policies to promote REDD PDF, 61 PAGES, 1.1 MB

But if deforestation and forest degradation are a double loss in the fight against climate change, then conversely forest conservation and expansion represent a double win. That is why there is so much interest in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation—REDD—which has the potential to deliver large cuts in carbon emissions at a low cost, within a short time span.

THE PRINCIPLE BEHIND REDD
It's a simple idea: reward the people who manage forest resources so that they reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. We need to make it more profitable to keep forests healthy than to degrade and destroy them. REDD proposes to do this by linking financial incentives for conservation with the carbon stored in forests. Forest owners or managers would receive credits for 'avoided deforestation', based on the carbon that has not been emitted; credits would be tradable in international carbon markets or through other mechanisms that effectively convert the credit to cash.

THE CHALLENGES
The idea behind REDD may be simple, but in practice it conceals a host of challenges. For instance, how should emissions reductions be monitored, reported and verified if forest data are poor or non-existent? Who should be rewarded—projects, countries or both? And how can we ensure that emissions reductions are permanent, so that trees saved this year are not felled next year?

Four key challenges have been identified, which need to be overcome for REDD to gain widespread acceptance:

• We need to be able to accurately measure the carbon stored in forests, in order to place a value on it.
• We need to decide what payments will be made and to whom: for instance, should national governments, local forest communities or logging companies benefit from REDD payments? How can we ensure transparency and accountability in these transactions?
• There needs to be some accountability for ensuring that forests are protected: if a REDD payment is made, but the forest is still destroyed, who should be liable and how?
• Where will the money come from to pay for REDD? Should it be government funded by donor countries, or should emissions reductions be linked to a market-based trading system?

All of the major challenges can be overcome with technical solutions but there are often trade-offs between them. And these trade-offs require political decisions, which may be more challenging than finding technical solutions.

WHERE DOES IT GO FROM HERE?
A number of countries have already begun to draw up strategies for reducing forest emissions in line with the aims of REDD. In December 2009, world leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will discuss a post-2012 global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. If they can reach an agreement, negotiators will decide whether and in what form to include a REDD mechanism. It seems likely that REDD principles would be incorporated; it is essential that discussions about their form are supported by sound policy and field research.