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December 2010
What is REDD?
Deforestation and Degradation
Around the world, forests are being destroyed at a rate of about thirteen million hectares a year and deforestation accounts for an estimated 17 20% of all global emissions. In addition, forests and other terrestrial carbon sinks play a vital role in preventing runaway climate change, soaking up a full 2.6 Gt of atmospheric carbon every year. The destruction of forests, therefore, not only emits carbon a staggering 1.6 Gt a year, which severely impairs forests capacity to absorb emissions from other sources but also drastically reduces the amount of forested land available to act as a carbon sink in the future. However, the effects of deforestation extend beyond carbon. Rainforests provide a wide variety of ecosystems services, from regulating rainfall to purifying groundwater and keeping fertile soil from eroding; deforestation in one area can seriously damage food production and access to clean water for an entire region. The value of global ecosystem services has been estimated at 33 trillion USD each year (almost half of global GDP), but these services have been taken for granted without a mechanism to make the market reect their value1. Rainforests are also a home and source of income for a huge number of people in Africa, Asia, and South America. Despite this, economic pressures frequently drive both local communities and national governments in the developing world to exploit these forests in ways that are unsustainable, clear-cutting vast areas for fuel, timber, mining, or agricultural land.
R. Costanza et al. The Value of the Worlds Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital. Nature Vol. 387, 1997. UN-REDD Programme. FAQs. Available online at: http://www.un-redd.org/AboutUNREDDProgramme/FAQs/tabid/586/Default.aspx; last accessed 5 December 2010.
Killeen, Tim, et al. Stabilizing the Agricultural Frontier: Leveraging REDD with Biofuels for Sustainable Development (presentation). Helsinki: Conservation International, 2009. Available online at: http://www.ieabioenergy-task38.org/workshops/helsink09/Killeen.pdf
Starbucks Coffee. Tackling Climate Change. Available online at: http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/climate-change; last accessed 5 December 2010.
Marriott Hotel Group. The Centrepiece of Marriotts Five-Point Environmental Strategy. Available online at: http://www.marriott.com/marriott.mi?pag e=green_protecting, last accessed 5 December 2010. Wolfson, Andrea. Disneys Commitment to REDD. Conservation International. 3 November 2009; last accessed at http://www.conservation.org/sites/celb/fmg/articles/Pages/110309_disney_redd.aspx on 4 December 2010.
The second option for businesses looking to invest in REDD is to nance a REDD project, with the option to buy carbon credits in the future to meet compliance requirements. This is particularly relevant to companies working in areas where current or emerging cap-and-trade schemes are likely to allow the use of REDD credits at some point soon. In the US, Californias state-wide cap-and-trade scheme includes REDD credits, and it is expected that any national scheme will eventually follow suit. Australias proposed carbon reduction scheme would allow for the use of REDD+ credits, and Japan has announced that it will incorporate REDD+ into its strategy to meet its carbon reduction targets for 2020. A number of emerging national cap-and-trade schemes in Asia may allow REDD credits, and there is speculation that if the EU moves to a higher carbon reduction target for 2020, REDD credits may be admitted into the EU-ETS as well. Ultimately, the compliance market is expected to supply the bulk of the demand for REDD credits. Finally, companies can choose to work with long-term investors to fund the development of REDD projects. This path allows companies to help shape the future of the REDD market; to address a number of environmental impacts of their business, from the degradation of ecosystems to water use; to communicate their environmental commitment to their stakeholders; and to demonstrate compellingly that there is a business case for investing in REDD, which will help show governments the value of allowing REDD credits to be used in compliance schemes.
REDD Today
After Cancn
At the UN Framework Convention on Climate Changes 2010 Conference of the Parties (COP) in Cancn, the assembled governments conrmed their commitment to REDD+ (specically citing the need to enhance and sustainably manage forest carbon stocks, as well as reduce emissions), and explicitly tied REDD+ to the overall goal of keeping global warming below 2C. The Cancn Agreement sends a strong signal to prospective investors and project developers that REDD+ will be central to international efforts to combat climate change. The next stage of REDD+ is taking denite shape. The Cancn Agreement gives national governments in the developing world a fair amount of control over the implementation of REDD+, but also includes broad provisions for international oversight, with the understanding that the details of these arrangements will be revisited at the Durban COP in 2011. Developing countries are to create their own national strategies for carrying out REDD+ activities. These strategies are supposed to address the specic drivers of deforestation in each country; land rights; forest governance; and gender issues (a critical part of managing forests: in most cultures, women are much more likely than men to be involved in certain aspects of forestry, such as collecting wood for fuel, but are far less likely to own the land they work). According to the Cancn Agreement, those with a stake in the REDD+ process including local communities and indigenous peoples should be allowed to participate fully and effectively in developing their countrys strategy.7 The Agreement also asks the governments of developing countries to set up robust and transparent monitoring systems, which should also provide information to the international community on how the national governments are dealing with key safeguards. These safeguards include protections for biodiversity, ecosystems services, and the rights of indigenous peoples, as well as measures to ensure that REDD+ programmes help countries develop sustainably and adapt to the effects of climate change. Crucially, the safeguards also include ensuring that REDD+ programmes protect against reversal and leakage (displacing deforestation to another, unprotected part of the countrys forests).8 However, the next round of climate negotiations will need to agree on the details of these safeguards, and on how governments will be held accountable for putting them in place, to ensure that REDD+ programmes are effective and fair.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Outcome of the Work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention. Available online at: http://unfccc.int/les/meetings/cop_16/application/pdf/cop16_lca.pdf; last accessed 21 January 2011. Ibid.
The negotiations made some progress on the technical issues surrounding REDD+, such as whether offsets should be calculated at the national or local level (the Agreement asks developing countries to establish a national baseline to measure deforestation against, although it allows local baselines as an interim measure).9 However, many methodological issues have been deferred until the Durban COP. As expected, the critical question of funding for REDD+ remains open.10 The Cancn negotiations did not decide whether there should be a dedicated fund to nance REDD+ projects, or whether the funding should come from the carbon market; the UNFCCC will spend 2011 researching these options further. Meanwhile, in the absence of a decision on global nance for REDD+, the UN-REDD Programme continues to rely on donations from individual governments in the developed world. Current donations amount almost ve billion USD; the Norwegian government still leads the way, having committed 31 million USD the programme in 2010 alone. The UN-REDD Programme expects that the progress made on REDD+ at Cancn will encourage further government investment. UN representatives are enthusiastic about the results of the Cancn negotiations on REDD+. Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, called the new provisions on REDD+ an important building block towards a successful, comprehensive global climate agreement in South Africa in 2011. He added, REDD+ could mark a decisive new chapter in humanitys sustainable management of its nature-based resources, while opening up Green Economy opportunities. Helen Clark, Administrator of the UN Development Programme, said that the Cancn Agreement recognizes the critical role of forests in the global effort to tackle climate change, as well as the centrality of of good governance and the role of women, , Indigenous Peoples, and local communities in the success of REDD+.11
Methodologies
The Climate Action Reserve (CAR), the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), Plan Vivo, and the American Carbon Registry have all developed standards and methodologies for REDD and avoided deforestation projects. Of these, only CARs standard is currently accepted by an existing compliance scheme, but the VCS standard has been proposed for use in emerging cap-and-trade schemes, and is the most well-developed and viable standard in the voluntary carbon market. (Between them, CAR and VCS account for a full two-thirds of the voluntary market.) Two standards also exist for measuring the co-benets of REDD projects: the Social Carbon standard assesses projects against a set of sustainable development indicators, while the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance veries the community and biodiversity benets of the project.
9 10
Ibid. Daviet, Florence. From Copenhagen to Cancn: Forests and REDD. World Resources Institute, 17 May 2010. Available online at http://www.wri.org/stories/2010/05/copenhagen-cancun-forests-and-redd; last accessed 5 December 2010. UN-REDD Programme Applauds the COP16 Agreement on REDD Reached in Cancn. UN-REDD Programme, 11 December 2010. Available online at: http://www.un-redd.org/NewsCentre/COP16_Press_Release_en/tabid/6595/Default.aspx; last accessed 21 January 2011.
11
Conclusions
Whether its compliance, pre-compliance, reputation or supply chain protection, REDD and REDD+ offer a compelling combination of carbon, community and biodiversity benets. Businesses looking to optimise their compliance activities, develop investments for the future, proactively build reputation, or ensure supply chain security do not need to wait for an air-tight global structure to take advantage of these opportunities now.
12
Viana, Virgilio M, et al. The Costs of REDD: Lessons from Amazonas. International Institute for Environment and Development, 2009. Available online at: http://unfccc.int/les/methods_science/redd/application/pdf/costs_of_redd_lesson_from_amazonas.pdf; last accessed 6 December 2010.