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In this book we refer to a range of mechanisms – as REDD (including REDD and REDD-type projects) that have been developed within and outside the United Nations system ostensibly to deal with deforestation and climate change. REDD has been under negotiation within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2005. The stated objective of the negotiations is to reduce net global emissions of greenhouse gases by controlling forest management in developing countries.
The box below from GRAIN summarizes how the mechanism is meant to work:
What is REDD+?
REDD stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries. It is the term under which forest loss is discussed at United Nations (UN) climate meetings. Since 2005, the issue of forest loss has distracted governments at these UN meetings from addressing the real cause of climate change – turning ancient underground deposits of oil, coal and gas into fossil fuels and burning them. Instead of coming up with a plan on how to end the release of greenhouse gas emissions that is the consequence of burning these fossil fuels, the UN climate talks have spent much time debating deforestation of tropical forests. Of course it is important to halt forest loss, also because of the CO2 emissions that are released when forests are destroyed. But reducing deforestation is no substitute for coming up with a plan on how to stop burning fossil fuel! The trouble with REDD is that that is exactly its consequence: enabling industrialised countries to burn fossil fuels a little longer.
REDD is another word the UN uses to discuss forests, and the plus stands for “enhancing carbon stocks, sustainable forest management and forest conservation” – or, as one commentator stated, “at some stage someone thought it fitting to tag on the “ ” which would come to represent all those other things that have come to the attention of the international development industry in recent years (like conservation, gender, indigenous people, livelihoods and so on)”. REDD was originally designed for countries with high deforestation, Brazil and Indonesia in particular. This meant that funding would be available primarily for those countries with much potential to reduce their rate of deforestation. Only eight countries accounting for 70% of tropical forest loss would thus be involved. Countries with much forest but little deforestation – Guyana, DRC, Gabon, for example – therefore insisted that REDD be designed so they would also have access to REDD funding, for example through being paid to not increase projected future deforestation. The plus was thus also added so that countries with low levels of deforestation but a lot of forest could also have access to what was at the time expected to be large sums of money for REDD activities. [1]
How is REDD+ meant to work?
Forest-rich countries in the global South agree to reduce emissions from forest destruction as part of a UN climate agreement. To demonstrate exactly how many tonnes of carbon (dioxide) have been saved, the government produces a national REDD+ plan, which explains how much forest would have been destroyed over the next few decades. Then they describe how much forest they would be willing not to cut if someone paid them to keep the forest standing. They calculate how much it would cost not to destroy this forest and how much carbon will not be released into the atmosphere as a result of keeping the forest intact.
In return, industrialised countries (or companies or international NGOs) pay the tropical forest countries (or individual REDD+ projects) to prevent the forest destruction that is claimed to happen without REDD+ finance. The payment will only be made if the forest country shows that forest loss has actually been reduced and that the carbon that otherwise would have been released into the atmosphere continues to be stored in the forest. That is why people sometimes talk about “results-based” or “performance” payments for REDD+. The REDD+ project also needs to show that without the REDD+ money the forest would have been destroyed. This last point is important because many industrialised countries and corporations that fund REDD+ activities want to receive something in return for their financial support. This something is called a carbon credit (the name might change in the UN climate treaty that governments are expected to adopt in Paris in December 2015). The WRM publication, “10 things communities should know about REDD”4, explains why the calculations that create carbon credits are not credible and why it is impossible to know whether forest was really only saved because of the REDD+ money.
What is this carbon credit good for?
A carbon credit is essentially a right to pollute. A polluting country or company that has made a commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions does not reduce their emissions by as much as they said they would. Instead, they pay someone elsewhere to make the reduction for them. That way, the polluter can claim to have lived up to their commitment when in reality they continue burning more oil and coal and release more CO2 into the atmosphere than they said they would. At the other end of the (REDD+) carbon credit deal, someone claims they were planning to destroy a forest but as a result of the payment, they decided to not destroy that forest. The carbon saved by protecting the forest that otherwise would have been cut is sold as a carbon credit to the polluter who keeps burning more fossil fuels than agreed. In other words, the owner of the carbon credit has the right to release one tonne of fossil carbon they had promised to avoid because someone else has saved a tonne of carbon in a forest that without the carbon payment would have been destroyed, releasing CO2. On the voluntary carbon market, where corporations and individuals buy carbon credits to claim that (some of) their emissions have been offset, REDD+ credits are traded for between US$3 and US$10.
Why does trading carbon credits not reduce emissions?
There are many problems with this idea of (carbon) offsets. Among them that they do not reduce overall emissions – what is saved in one place allows extra emissions in another place. In the case of REDD+ offsets, another problem is the very important difference between the carbon stored in oil, coal and gas and the carbon stored in forests. The carbon stored in the trees is part of a natural cycle through which carbon is constantly released and absorbed by plants. The terrestrial carbon has been circulating between the atmosphere, the oceans and the forest for millions of years.
Deforestation over the centuries has meant that too much of the carbon naturally in circulation has ended up in the atmosphere and too little in forests. Today, industrial agriculture, logging, infrastructure and mining are the main drivers of deforestation. When industrialised countries started burning oil and coal, they further increased the amount of carbon that could accumulate in the atmosphere. The carbon in these “fossil fuels” had been stored underground for millions of years, without contact with the atmosphere. Its release greatly increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn causes the climate to change. Although plants can absorb part of this additional carbon released from ancient oil and coal deposits, they do so only temporarily. When the plant dies or a forest is destroyed or burns, the carbon is released and increases the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (adding to the imbalance from forest destruction). That is why REDD+ credits not only don’t help reduce overall emissions, but also will lead to an increase of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, because REDD+ is built on the false assumption that forest and fossil carbon are the same when from a climate perspective they are clearly not!
- For more information, see WRM website section on REDD and publication 10 Things Communities Should Know About REDD, www.wrm.org.uy ↵
