Sandro Federici

Applying the conservativeness principle to REDD to deal with the uncertainties of the estimates

A common paradigm when the reduction of emissions from deforestations is estimated for the purpose of promoting it as a mitigation option in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is that high uncertainties in input data—i.e., area change and C stock change/area—may seriously undermine the credibility of the estimates and therefore of reduced deforestation as a mitigation option. In this paper, we show how a series of concepts and methodological tools—already existing in UNFCCC decisions and IPCC guidance documents—may greatly help to deal with the uncertainties of the estimates of reduced emissions from deforestation.

Elements for the expected mechanisms on 'reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, REDD' under UNFCCC

Carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation account for about 20% of global anthropogenic emissions. Strategies and incentives for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) have emerged as one of the most active areas in the international climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While the current negotiations focus on a REDD mechanism in developing countries, it should be recognized that risks of carbon losses from forests occur in all climate zones and also in industrialized countries. A future climate change agreement would be more effective if it included all carbon losses and gains from land use in all countries and climate zones. The REDD mechanism will be an important step towards reducing emissions from land use change in developing countries, but needs to be followed by steps in other land use systems and regions. A national approach to REDD and significant coverage globally are needed to deal with the risk that deforestation and degradation activities are displaced rather than avoided. Favourable institutional and governance conditions need to be established that guarantee in the long-term a stable incentive and control system for maintaining forest carbon stocks. Ambitious emission reductions from deforestation and forest degradation need sustained financial incentives, which go beyond positive incentives for reduced emissions but also give incentives for sustainable forest management. Current data limitations need—and can be—overcome in the coming years to allow accurate accounting of reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation. A proper application of the conservativeness approach in the REDD context could allow a simplified reporting of emissions from deforestation in a first phase, consistent with the already agreed UNFCCC reporting principles.

Implementing conservativeness in REDD+ is realistic and useful to address the most uncertain estimates

One of the main challenges in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation(REDD+), either within a future UNFCCC approach or as part of other voluntary initiatives,is to design a system which is credible and broadly implementable by developing countries.To ensure credibility of REDD+ high quality monitoring systems are needed, i.e. capable ofproducing accurate estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals. However, apossible trade-off exists between the high quality system requirement and broad participa-tion: if a significant number of countries will not fully access REDD+ because of not beingable to produce accurate estimates, the consequent risk of leakage (i.e. emissions displace-ment to these countries) could undermine the ultimate scope of REDD+.Plugge et al. (2012) analyzed the implications of applying the principle of conserva-tiveness in the context of uncertainties of carbon stock change estimates in REDD+. Whilethis principle is included in several UNFCCC documents (e.g., UNFCCC2006), itsapplication to REDD+ was proposed by Grassi et al. (2008) “to address the potentialincompleteness and high uncertainties of REDD+ estimates”;i.e.“when completeness oraccuracy of estimates cannot be achieved the reduction of emissions should not beoverestimated,oratleastthe riskofoverestimationshouldbereduced”.Wide interest hasbeenshown in this proposal (e.g., GOFC-GOLD 2012;HeroldS MeridianInstitute 2011).A key message from Plugge et al. (2012) is that, despite its attractiveness, the conserva-tiveness principle does not appear to be implementable in many cases, because it drasticallyreduces the amount of emission reductions that can be claimed (e.g. “for countries with lowdeforestation rates REDD is obviously not an option for generating benefits, as they wouldneed to implement monitoring systems that are able to estimate carbon stock changes with atotal error well below 1 %”). Similar conclusions, using a similar approach, were alsopresented in Kohl et al. (2009).We believe that this conclusion: on the impossibility for countries with low deforestationrates to generate REDD+ benefits under a conservative approach, is the consequence of theassumptions taken by these authors. In particular, some elements appear to have beenoverlooked by Plugge et al. (2012).

Reconciling global-model estimates and country reporting of anthropogenic forest CO 2 sinks

Achieving the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement requires forest-based mitigation. Collective progress towards this goal will be assessed by the Paris Agreement’s Global stocktake. At present, there is a discrepancy of about 4 GtCO2 yr−1 in global anthropogenic net land-use emissions between global models (reflected in IPCC assessment reports) and aggregated national GHG inventories (under the UNFCCC). We show that a substantial part of this discrepancy (about 3.2 GtCO2 yr−1) can be explained by conceptual differences in anthropogenic forest sink estimation, related to the representation of environmental change impacts and the areas considered as managed. For a more credible tracking of collective progress under the Global stocktake, these conceptual differences between models and inventories need to be reconciled. We implement a new method of disaggregation of global land model results that allows greater comparability with GHG inventories. This provides a deeper understanding of model–inventory differences, allowing more transparent analysis of forest-based mitigation and facilitating a more accurate Global stocktake.The model–inventory discrepancy in net land-use carbon emissions mainly results from conceptual differences in estimating anthropogenic forest sinks. A revised disaggregation of global land model results allows greater comparability with inventories.