Forest Justice

What is REDD?

Safeguarding forests is a cost-effective and common sense way to decrease the amount of carbon in our atmosphere, while also protecting habitat for wildlife. Healthy forests absorb carbon, while destruction of tropical forests causes up to 20% of the world’s annual global warming emissions. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is a policy approach that is emerging in global climate talks and in US legislation as the best way to reduce carbon emissions from the loss of forests and conserve tropical biodiversity on a large scale.

Basic principles of forest biology underlie the REDD concept. Trees absorb carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and store it in their leaves, branches and trunks. When forests are burned or cut down to clear land – or trees are harvested for timber – carbon dioxide is released back into
the atmosphere.

REDD policies can establish economic incentives for large-scale tropical forest conservation by valuing standing forests for their ability to protect the climate through storing vast amounts of carbon. In addition, efforts can be made to reduce carbon emissions that result from “degradation,” or the gradual thinning of forests, which is often a pre-cursor to deforestation. Without such incentives for conservation, the powerful economic forces that drive deforestation will continue to cause people to convert living forest to timber, charcoal, pasture and cropland. Addressing deforestation through REDD must be part of a comprehensive global climate change solution that addresses all major sources of emissions. It represents a win-win-win strategy in dealing
with climate change: first, it reduces global greenhouse gas emissions and provides a mechanism for developing nations to make a meaningful contribution to achieve reductions; second, it provides lower cost reduction options that keep the overall cost of reducing emissions lower; and third, it delivers  important environmental and social co-benefits for the people that reside in and rely on forests for their livelihood and for the plants and animals that live in them.

REDD is rapidly gaining traction in national and international climate discussions, and will likely be an important part of domestic and international climate policies being finalized this year. At the international level, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has formally recognized that action on REDD cannot be delayed. Domestically, the House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act has robust international REDD provisions that are key to the bill’s success.

Why is REDD urgent?

Climate Change Mitigation

• To avert the worst global-scale impacts of climate change, developed and developing nations must reduce their emissions—both from fossil fuels and from deforestation.
• The atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration is nearing 400 ppm CO2 and continues to increase very significantly, increasing the risk of the worst global-scale impacts of climate change. At current rates, deforestation will increase CO2 concentration by nearly 130 ppm over the next century. Greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation now amount to more than the annual carbon emissions from the global transportation sector. Therefore, effectively reducing these emissions are critical to addressing climate change.

Critical Co-Benefits

• Biodiversity conservation: Because tropical forests house more than half of the world’s species, deforestation threatens the biological diversity of the entire world. Loss of these forests is proceeding at a rate of about 5% per decade. REDD can help protect these natural storehouses.
• Maintenance of critical ecosystems: Tropical forests drive global weather and hydrologic cycles and protect watersheds on which millions depend. Conserving tropical forests maintains these functions for people and for the planet.
• Poverty alleviation: REDD can help ease poverty by compensating indigenous peoples and forestdependent communities for their stewardship of the land. It can also help them protect their most valuable economic and cultural resources.

Spurring Global Action

• Action by both developing and industrialized nations is key to mitigating climate change. REDD is a powerful tool for engaging developing nations in a global agreement.
• REDD can help break the standoff over who should act first by providing incentives for developing countries to reduce deforestation on a scale previously unavailable and to help mobilize even greater action by developing countries on their own.

How will REDD work?

REDD counters the economic drivers of deforestation by creating economic incentives to make forests
worth more alive than dead. REDD can be implemented affordably using available technologies and
can be financed with both public funding and carbon markets, and developed in a credible manner.

Funding

• Market and non-market funding are both needed for REDD to succeed on a global scale. Early and targeted investments of public funding from developed countries will be needed to help developing nations put effective REDD programs in place and be prepared for market-based finance. Market-based financing—from trading forest carbon credits in national and global carbon markets—can provide funding on the scale needed to stem deforestation worldwide. This financing, based on a system of high-quality standards for valuing forest carbon credits, is key to unleashing private sector finance while helping to lower the overall costs of the climate change reduction program.

Program Design

• National-level accounting and Sub-national projects: Nations must be able to establish scientifically-determined baseline rates of deforestation and reduce their overall deforestation below those baselines in a reasonable amount of time. This ensures deforestation is not simply shifted from one area of the country to another. Sub-national level REDD activities at appropriate scales should be permitted for a transition period to build capacity and assist countries in the transition to national accounting. A properly designed transition to national approaches could help countries prepare for national level reductions in the near-term.
• Monitoring: Credible measuring and monitoring of forest cover and biomass is needed to determine if REDD goals are met (i.e. real reductions in forest emissions) and, together with independent verification, can ensure forests are protected for the long run.
• Bottom-up participation: Developing country governments and forest communities must participate in the design, implementation and payment systems for REDD to ensure their needs are recognized.
• Significant and sustainable financing: Nations need adequate and dependable financing to ensure forests that are protected today are not cleared tomorrow. Both market-and non-market sources can provide this funding.
• Developed countries must make deeper commitments in national and international climate policies to ensure adequate funding for reducing deforestation.

For more information, please contact:
Doug Boucher | dboucher@ucsusa.org | +1-202-331-6958

The Tropical Forests and Climate Coalition is a broad alliance of business and nongovernmental  organizations working together to craft workable and environmentally sound forest conservation provisions in U.S. climate and energy legislation. Well-designed provisions will increase developing country participation in efforts to curb global emissions, lower U.S. compliance costs, protect critical habitats for threatened animal and plants, and preserve vital
ecosystem services that sustain human livelihoods.