This report provides an update on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Plus1 (REDD+) forest reference (emission) levels (FREL/FRLs) and REDD+ results submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and relevant developments under the Green Climate Fund concerningREDD+ results-based payments. It illustrates the choices countries have made when constructing their FREL/FRLs and areas for improvement identified during technical assessments. Such information can help countries to learn from each other.
The aim of this publication is to inform countries about the latest developments in the Measurement, Reporting and Verification for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, and the role of sustainable management of forests, conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks, known as REDD+. It provides an update on forest reference (emission) levels (FREL/FRLs) and REDD+ results submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The report illustrates the choices that countries made when they constructed their FREL/FRLs and areas for improvement identified during technical assessments. The report also provides an update of the evolving context of REDD+, including a summary of the Green Climate Fund’s recently approved pilot programme for results-based payments for REDD+. As of early 2018, the following REDD+ measurement, reporting and verification milestones had been achieved: Thirty-four countries had submitted 38 FREL/FRLs to the UNFCCC for technical assessment. The UNFCCC had published 22 FREL/FRL technical assessment reports, and a further 16 technical assessments were ongoing. Four countries had reported REDD+ results to the UNFCCC through five REDD+ results submissions (in the REDD+ technical annex of their biennial update reports), totalling more than 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent in emission reductions, mostly in Brazil. All five technical analyses of REDD+ results had been completed. Eighty-eight percent of the countries that had submitted FREL/FRLs had completed or were establishing national forest inventories.
Constructive critique. This book provides a critical, evidence-based analysis of REDD+ implementation so far, without losing sight of the urgent need to reduce forest-based emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change. REDD+ as envisioned
REDD+ must be transformational. REDD+ requires broad institutional and governance reforms, such as tenure, decentralisation, and corruption control. These reforms will enable departures from business as usual, and involve communities and forest users in making and implementing policies that a ect them. Policies must go beyond forestry. REDD+ strategies must include policies outside the forestry sector narrowly de ned, such as agriculture and energy, and better coordinate across sectors to deal with non-forest drivers of deforestation and degradation. Performance-based payments are key, yet limited. Payments based on performance directly incentivise and compensate forest owners and users. But schemes such as payments for environmental services (PES) depend on conditions, such as secure tenure, solid carbon data and transparent governance, that are often lacking and take time to change. This constraint reinforces the need for broad institutional and policy reforms. We must learn from the past. Many approaches to REDD+ now being considered are similar to previous e orts to conserve and better manage forests, often with limited success. Taking on board lessons learned from past experience will improve the prospects of REDD+ e ectiveness. National circumstances and uncertainty must be factored in. Di erent country contexts will create a variety of REDD+ models with di erent institutional and policy mixes. Uncertainties about the shape of the future global REDD+ system, national readiness and political consensus require exibility and a phased approach to REDD+ implementation.
This book presents a cohesive collection of contributions representing an African scholarly voice on some of the most burning and emerging topics and experiences regarding the implementation of REDD+ in Africa from a human rights perspective. It addresses the international human rights obligations of states and non-state actors in the context of REDD+ implementation in Africa; how current practices in various African states reinforce or affect human rights standards; and critical issues concerning the rights of vulnerable groups such as women, Indigenous populations, and forest dwellers in the implementation of REDD+ in Africa. Further, it investigates potential gaps in the existing laws, and how they can be addressed from a comparative point of view. The book also sheds light on the roles that different actors can play in fostering change and identifies best practices in the implementation of REDD+ in Africa. The book offers a rich intellectual resource for various actors in the environmental science, climate and environmental law fields who are often confronted with the challenge of how to manage the delicate balance of forests as a development resource; forests as a climate-change mitigation resource; and forests as a catalyst for the rights of vulnerable populations. The book responds to the imbalance and gaps in REDD+ scholarship. Addressing such lacuna in an edited volume of this nature is essential to the present and future work of practitioners, academics and other actors with a sustained interest in REDD+ in Africa.
Carbon Inventory Methods Handbook fills the need for a handbook that provides guidelines and methods required for carbon inventory. It provides detailed step-by-step information on sampling procedures, field and laboratory measurements, application of remote sensing and GIS techniques, modeling, and calculation procedures along with sources of data for carbon inventory. The book is driven by a growing need for ‘carbon inventory’ for land use sections such as forests.
This forest data assessment was conducted as part of the five-year Global Transformation of Forests for People and Climate: a focus on West Africa project, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). This document aims to provide quality data to support decision-making and sustainable management of forest and land resources at both national and subregional levels. It also seeks to develop processes that could be replicated in other subregions within Africa and outside the region. This document is one of the outputs of the project and provides information on existing forest data in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries, critical information gaps on forest condition and land use and land cover dynamics, and capacity development needs.
Key findings There is very little clarity even among experts on the broader implications of the different carbon accounting methods, or of the design of the MRV system as a whole, particularly for the social, political and economic outcomes (e.g. outcomes related to benefit sharing). Greater understanding of the needs and interests of different actors through improved communication, dialogue, and trust between national and regional governments, and between scientists and policy makers, could lead to a more useful and effective institutional architecture for MRV. The development of the MRV system in Peru demonstrates the challenges inherent in vertical and horizontal (multilevel) coordination, including between the national government and regional governments, and across sectors, particularly the environment and agriculture sectors. Better intra- and inter-institutional coordination could help mitigate the costs associated with investment in overlapping activities, such as unhealthy competition, inefficient use of resources and the need to adapt or abandon work in progress. The technical complexities of MRV, particularly methods of monitoring and verifying carbon emissions analysis and changes in forest cover through high resolution spatial images, influence which actors are involved in the design process and the nature of their involvement. In Peru, this process has excluded those without this expertise, such as subnational governments that have limited technical capacity and funding and, in many cases, suffer from institutional instability.
