Author: Kelly McManus

REDD+ Wildfire (Image by: B.G. Johnson)

Throughout COP15, forests have proven to be the one issue that all negotiating blocs can (at least generally) agree upon.  As we arrive at the end of the this historic meeting, a global deal on climate stands on shaky grounds but REDD+ remains stable, shaping up to be quite possibly, the single success story of the COP.

We may argue that REDD+ without broader emissions targets will fail to create net emissions reductions, and that further warming is a major threat to forests regardless.  These are valid points that must be addressed.  But nevertheless, late last night a REDD+ text was agreed to by negotiators to hopefully be signed today by the heads of state.  As one of the delegates of the contact party on REDD+ said of coming out of the session last night, “Compared to everything else, the REDD text is on schedule. Last night the contact groups reported back and you could almost detect the classroom envy as we were the goody two-shoes who handed in the assignment on time. There was a sense of history that this is finally when REDD became real.”

Why has REDD+ succeeded where everything else has failed?  Perhaps it has to do with the incentives, local to global, to maintain forests.  Perhaps it is the “+”-the fact that, beyond functioning as carbon sinks and stores, forests provide essential co-benefits including biodiversity, regional water cycling, cultural identity, and local livelihoods.  A carbon-centric view of forests might deem REDD+ in the absence of broader targets a failure, but it is only in taking a larger, holistic view of forests that REDD+ could have made it this far.   REDD+ has gotten the incentives right for the countries who needed to agree to it, and thus stands poised to become the largest coordinated effort to stop deforestation the world has seen.

The outcome of the rest of the day is, of course, of critical importance to the fate of the forests and the fate of, well, our world.  It is perhaps too soon to celebrate this small victory, and the larger and more ominous context of a failed global treaty in which this small victory may occur must not be disregarded.   Efficient, equitable, and fair implementation will be challenging, and long term finance must be secured. But I’d like to think that forests everywhere just breathed out a long, oxygen-filled, sigh of relief.

Author: Kelly M. McManus

REDD+ is considered as one of the more actionable items on the COP agenda, and it is predicted that a binding agreement on forests may be one of few substantive outcomes of the Copenhagen summit. However, REDD+ is widely criticized by most stakeholders, from broad calls for the three “E”s-equity, efficiency, and equality, concerns that have carried over from Poznan, to admonition of REDD+ as “carbon colonialism” by indigenous peoples who have seen their lands and livelihoods usurped in the name of the CDM.    Despite these criticisms, an acknowledgement of the critical need to halt deforestation, which garners support not only on the basis of emissions reductions, but also as a strategy for protecting biodiversity and providing essential ecosystem services, drives the REDD+ process along.

But can REDD+ deliver on its essential task of reducing emissions? New research suggests that deforestation probably accounts for around 12% of global carbon emissions, both because deforestation rates have decreased in real terms and other sources of carbon emissions have increased in proportion to deforestation emissions (Van der Werf, et al., 2009).   The significant challenges of implementing REDD+ mean that actual emissions reductions from deforestation will be somewhat less than this. Substantial issues have been raised in determining appropriate baseline levels of deforestation, developing methods to prevent “leakage“-i.e. deforestation displaced from forests under REDD+ governance to those which are not , and ensuring that compensation is only given to projects that are truly additional, that is, forests that would be deforested without the injection of REDD+ monies.   None of these are simple questions, and what is appropriate in one nation or for one driver of forest conversion, may be disastrous in another.

Furthermore, long-term ecological modeling studies in the Amazon suggest that under conditions of drought and higher average temperatures, forest dieback may switch the forest from being a carbon sink to a carbon source (Cox et al., 2004).

The uncertainties on REDD+ extend beyond emissions reductions.  REDD+ represents the largest potential financial investment into mitigating deforestation that has ever been undertaken.  This investment will be delivered to developing nations for avoided deforestation (RED), forest degradation (REDD), maintenance of existing forest stocks (PINC), and/or enhancement of standing forest carbon stocks (REDD+), or some combination of these options, depending upon which proposal is ultimately adopted.  If REDD+ (or RED or REDD) prioritizes carbon storage above all other currently non-market forest services (e.g. biodiversity, hydrological and nutrient cycling), it will create trade-offs between these services that may prove to be ecologically-and economically, if the critical role of water and nutrient cycling are to agriculture and human systems-unsound.    

To counter these very real challenges, we have added ‘D’s and ‘+’s and ‘PINC’s and a plethora of caveats to what started as a relatively simple economic, though potentially dangerous, economic tool. We have created a REDD giant.

Given the high stakes and high uncertainty associated with REDD+, it is necessary that we critically evaluate the potential  that the current market-based proposed REDD+ mechanism may ultimately cost too much, do too little, and have adverse impacts on biological and social systems.

These are not easy questions, and the political momentum behind REDD+, after literally years of negotiations and consensus-building, makes it unlikely that delegates will want to reopen this Pandora’s box.  But if they were to just take a quick peek inside, they might be well advised to consider one aspect of deforestation that is becoming increasingly more clear-the increasing proportion of deforestation that is caused by export-driven commodity markets, namely cattle ranching, soya production, and oil palm plantations.  If the problem with deforestation were narrowed to simply commercial markets for these commodities (albeit admittedly leaving the smaller but important problem of poverty-based deforestation for another, perhaps aid-based, mechanism) deforestation could conceivably be addressed through a trade-based, demand-side solution, akin to the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (EU FLEGT) Program.  Perhaps the market that needs to be regulated is not the one that does not yet exist for forest carbon, but the very well established markets for global “deforestation” commodities.   The thought of changing course so late in the game may seem the type of thing to send a delegation into a frenzy, but fear not, we merely need to add on a consonant. Ladies and gentlemen, meet REDD+T.