Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265310 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Citation: 
[Journal:] Environmental Research Letters [ISSN:] 1748-9326 [Volume:] 17 [Issue:] 11 [Article No.:] 114011 [Publisher:] IOP Publishing [Place:] Bristol [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 1-10
Publisher: 
IOP Publishing, Bristol
Abstract: 
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) aims to maintain forest carbon stocks above benchmark reference levels through financial compensation. However, countries with high forest cover and low deforestation (HFLD) are unlikely to be compensated fairly if REDD+ initiatives fail to conserve existing forests and to incentivize low deforestation rates. Here we analyze the submissions of forest reference levels (FRLs) of five HFLD countries [Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Republic of the Congo (Congo), Guyana, Papua New Guinea, Suriname] to the REDD+ platform of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We assessed if the FRLs are likely to yield compensation payments that maintain carbon stocks above the business-as-usual scenario and compared the FRLs with quantitative emission data. Our results show that only Guyana submitted an FRL that yielded sufficient monetary incentives for low deforestation rates. Compensation payments will likely be insufficient in Suriname, Papua New Guinea, and the Congo. The FRL of the DRC would generate the highest compensation payment (on average US$ 1.3 billion annually). Overall, our results suggest that payments from REDD+ will fail to provide adequate incentives for most HFLD countries. We suggest that the FRL should allow for post hoc adaptation to changes in the drivers of deforestation. This implies that REDD+ schemes need sufficient flexibility to reflect changes in the opportunity costs of alternative land uses, which is particularly acute for HFLD countries where pressure on forests can accumulate rapidly. More adaptive REDD+ likely better rewards HFLD countries in ways that preserve their valuable forest ecosystems.
Subjects: 
tropical deforestation
primary forest
greenhouse gas emissions
emission reductions
mitigation
climate policy
land-use change
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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