The role of science in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and

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The role of science in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) Carbon Management (2010) 1(2), 253–259

RA Houghton†1, N Greenglass1, A Baccini1, A Cattaneo1, S Goetz1, J Kellndorfer1, N Laporte1 & W Walker1 Emissions of carbon from tropical deforestation and degradation currently account for 12–15% of total anthropogenic carbon emissions each year, and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD; including REDD+) is poised to be the primary international mechanism with the potential to reduce these emissions. This article provides a brief summary of the scientific research that led to REDD, and that continues to help refine and resolve issues of effectiveness, efficiency and equitability for a REDD mechanism. However, REDD deals only with tropical forests and there are other regions, ecosystems and processes that govern the sources and sinks of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Ongoing research will reveal which of these other flows of carbon are most important, and which of them might present further opportunities to reduce emissions (or enhance sinks) through environmental policy mechanisms, as well as how they might do this.

The stabilization of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will require large reductions in the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide [1] . Most of those emissions come from combustion of fossil fuels, but 12–15% of carbon emissions over the last decade resulted from tropical deforestation and degradation [2] . The initiative reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) has received considerable attention in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. The objective of REDD is to compensate developing countries for avoiding emissions that would otherwise have occurred, in effect reimbursing them for missed opportunity costs. Compensation would come from a variety of sources, including from Annex I countries that use the reduction in emissions to meet their commitments. Revenues would thus be transferred from the wealthier (developed) nations to poorer (developing) nations, and tropical forests would be left standing. An expansion of REDD, now called REDD+ (adding conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks to REDD),

has been in development over the last 5 years and may be formally adopted into the UNFCCC basket of policy approaches by 2012. The scientific community has a pivotal role in REDD+’s transition from a policy framework to an implementable mechanism through the development of tools for measuring performance, distributing costs and benefits, and achieving the greatest atmospheric and environmental benefits. REDD+ is national in scope (not project based) and thus requires systematic measurement of deforestation and degradation over large areas. The scale also requires integration of such issues as governance and multi-stakeholder participation. However, REDD+ is not sufficient for the management of terrestrial carbon in the long term. Scientists need to quantify all processes, and all regions, responsible for both releasing carbon to, and removing carbon from the atmosphere. Understanding and better quantifying the major fluxes of carbon and associated costs to reduce emissions or sequester carbon will help decision makers realize the best opportunities for the long-term management of terrestrial carbon.

The Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, MA 02540, USA Author for correspondence: Tel.: +1 508 444 1516; Fax: +1 508 444 1816; E-mail: [email protected]

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Houghton, Greenglass, Baccini et al.

The road to REDD+ Approximately a third of the total Deforestation: Deforestation is a anthropogenic emissions of carbon land-use change. It consists of transforming forest to nonforest (e.g., to to the atmosphere between 1850 cropland or pasture). and 2006 resulted from land use and Reference level: In the context of REDD, land-use change [3] . Total fossil fuel reference level refers to the baseline emissions over this 157-year period emissions against which subsequent were approximately 330 PgC, while emissions will be compared in order to evaluate the effects of changes in policy net emissions from land use and or management. land-use change totaled 156 PgC [3] . Forest degradation: Forest degradation During the 1990s, emissions from is a land use. It consists of reducing the land-use change were responsible for carbon density of a forest, for example, 17–20% of global carbon emissions, through forestry or burning. A land use or 31% of total anthropogenic GHG does not change the category of land, although it may affect its carbon density. emissions if methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture are Carbon density: The amount of carbon per unit area (e.g., megagrams of carbon included [1] . In recent decades, the per hectare). Forests have a greater proportion of total carbon emissions carbon density than nonforests, but from land-use change (not countthere is considerable spatial variability in ing agriculture) has declined, not carbon density within a single type of forest. Carbon density may refer to the because the emissions from land use amount of carbon in the soil as well as in and land-use change have declined, biomass (vegetation). but rather because emissions from fossil fuels have increased so sharply. Until the 1940s, most of the carbon emissions from land use and land-use change originated in the midlatitudes as a result of deforestation and cultivation of soils in the world’s temperate and boreal regions (Figure 1) . Since approximately 1960, however, land use and land-use change in tropical regions (primarily tropical deforestation) have been responsible for nearly all of the net global emissions from land use and land-use change. The emissions of carbon from land use outside of the tropics have been offset by the sinks of carbon there in growing forests recovering from agricultural abandonment, logging and fire suppression [3] . The fact that current emissions from tropical deforestation account for 12–15% of total carbon emissions [2] identifies tropical deforestation as the one land-based activity that is most likely to have potential for reducing emissions in the near term, and a proposal for a policy mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation (RED) was first formally introduced to the UNFCCC in 2005 at the 11th Conference of the Parties. Further research indicated that emissions resulting from degradation of tropical forests might also be included, both to more fully capture the range of activities leading to emissions from tropical forests and to forestall potential issues pertaining to the policy definitions of forest and deforestation. ‘RED’ thus became ‘REDD’ at the 13th Conference of the Parties in 2007. At that time, REDD was formally included in the Bali Action Plan – the roadmap for work on a post-2012 climate agreement. In 2008, REDD was expanded to REDD+ Key terms

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as forest conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks were added to enhance the environmental effectiveness of the potential mechanism. Negotiations under the UNFCCC have resulted in a REDD+ policy framework that is poised to be incorporated into a post-2012 global agreement to address climate change. Issues in the current draft [101] that remain to be addressed are primarily those that must be decided at a political, rather than technical, level and include the financing mechanism, modalities for verification of actions and outcomes, social safeguards and the potential roles of sub-national versus national-scale incentives, actions and carbon accounting. Attention of the international REDD+ community has begun to focus on developing methodologies and modalities to turn existing policy guidance into implementable actions. Much of this work will be accomplished through the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice, which in turn relies upon expert guidance from scientists, environmental decision-makers, forest-dwelling peoples and communities, and the large community of REDD+ stakeholders. Current advances in implementing REDD Work on turning a REDD+ policy framework into specific mechanisms and actions is progressing on a number of individual elements, including building capacity in developing countries for mapping and monitoring of tropical forests, developing modalities for the inclusion of indigenous and local knowledge, and operationalizing environmental and social safeguards. Many of these elements are also addressed and developed in fora outside the UNFCCC process, including multilateral institutions and international governmental and nongovernmental collaborations focused on developing a knowledge base and tools for all aspects of the anticipated REDD+ mechanism (e.g., UN-REDD, the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, the Forum on Readiness for REDD, and multiple bilateral efforts). The REDD+ policy framework in development under the UNFCCC is working on the development of a functioning policy mechanism to address the largest quantified source of land-based GHG emissions. Significant recent progress has been made on two aspects of REDD+ implementation that demonstrate the synergy between the scientific and policy processes particularly well: the development of methods for mapping and monitoring tropical forests and the biomass and carbon stocks within them; and evaluations of the environmental effectiveness, cost efficiency and international equity of existing proposals for setting REDD+ reference levels. The outcome of each of these efforts has the potential to directly inform both the development


The role of science in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & Forest Degradation (REDD)

Mapping & monitoring pan-tropical aboveground woody biomass The ability to measure forest carbon accurately will underpin a results-based REDD+ mechanism (i.e., a mechanism that provides payment for each ton of carbon that is not emitted owing to reduced deforestation and degradation). The distribution of incentives that will effectively reduce deforestation and forest degradation is predicated on the capacity to accurately map, assess and monitor changes in forest carbon. Estimation of gross emissions from land use and land-use change depends on the area deforested, disturbed or regrowing and the density of carbon stocks stored in these areas. Multiple methodologies are currently under development to measure changes in forest carbon at different scales using a variety of technologies, and improvements in accuracy and efficiency will continue to be made as long as the scientific community continues to be engaged with this process. Advances in the use and availability of large collections of remote sensing data have proved useful for monitoring forest area change [4] and providing spatially explicit estimates of above-ground woody biomass [5] ; however, it has been difficult to provide estimates of change in carbon stock over large tropical regions. Commonly, estimates of carbon stock are derived from existing forest inventory data that provide a calculation of the amount of carbon stock at the national level but offer limited spatial information [6] . In the absence of data on spatially explicit carbon density, scientists often assign an average carbon density to the forest removed, while for REDD carbon accounting, a conservative lower bound for carbon density is the proposed and preferred method for dealing with uncertainty. However, carbon density varies spatially, and neither the average nor the lower bound corresponds to the carbon density of those forests that is actually removed. Existing estimates of emissions thus have large uncertainty [7,8] . More direct methods to measure changes in forest carbon at different scales continue to be developed using a variety of remote sensing technologies, including combinations of optical, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), and radar data coupled with in situ field measurements [6,9–12] . LiDAR provides the best estimates of above-ground biomass [13,14] but is not available with ‘wall-to-wall’ coverage over large areas. Radar offers the advantage of being able to penetrate clouds and obtain data day and night, and the next generation of satellites are incorporating radar and/or LiDAR for measurement of above-ground biomass from space. Examples


1.8 1.6 Annual net flux of carbon (PgC/year)

of REDD+ methodologies and future implementation of an international mechanism to manage tropical forest carbon.

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1.4

Tropical

1.2

Temperate

1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 -0.2 1850 1865 1880 1895 1910 1925 1940 1955 1970 1985 2000 Year

Figure 1. Annual net emissions of carbon (PgC/year) from land use and land-use change in the world’s temperate and boreal regions and in tropical regions.

include the US (NASA) DESDynI mission scheduled for launch in approximately 2017 and the European (ESA) BIOMASS mission. Data from existing satellites are also being used with new approaches that increase accuracy and efficiency without an increase in cost for the user. For example, a new study [Baccini A, Goetz SJ, Laporte N et al. New satellite-based estimates of tropical carbon stocks and emissions.

used field measurements colocated with geoscience laser altimeter system (GLAS) satellite LiDAR data and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) observations to map the amount and spatial distribution of carbon density in the woody vegetation of tropical regions. The resulting pan-tropical data set has a nominal spatial resolution of 500 × 500 m and provides estimates of carbon densities at the national and sub-national scales to within 25 tC ha-1. The new methods for estimating carbon stocks are independent of land-cover definitions and categorical classes, and provide a continuous range of carbon density estimates that are temporally and spatially consistent across countries [15] . The new data have the potential to reduce the uncertainty in emissions estimates by providing estimates of carbon density for the forests actually removed and can be used to monitor carbon stock changes through time. However, changes in above-ground biomass miss changes in soil carbon, and full carbon accounting must include use of ecosystem Manuscript in Preparation]

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models. The spatial distribution of forest carbon density within countries can further be used to inform mechanisms for distributing incentive payments for carbon stocks at multiple scales [Cattaneo A, Lubowski R, Busch J et al. On international equity in reducing emissions from deforestation. Environ. Sci. Policy. Manuscript Submitted] .

These distribution mechanisms and the reference levels on which they are based are discussed below. An effective, efficient & equitable international REDD+ mechanism A second issue on which the research community has made significant progress in translating the REDD+ policy framework into a functional tool for managing tropical forest carbon is the design and evaluation of the reference levels, or the baselines, against which reductions in deforestation will be measured and credited. The design of reference levels affects the economic incentives for national participation in a REDD+ mechanism and thus the overall motivation to reach an agreement on REDD+. Reference levels of emissions are key to determining a REDD+ mechanism’s overall reductions in emissions from deforestation (i.e., its effectiveness), reductions per dollar spent (i.e., its cost-efficiency), and distribution of REDD+ revenue across countries and regions (i.e., its equity) [16,17] . One of the earliest proposals for a reference level design was to set a country’s reference level equal to its average national rate of emissions from deforestation over a recent historical period [18] . However, when positive incentives are extended only to countries with historically high rates of deforestation, the threat of displacement, or ‘leakage,’ of deforestation activities to countries with historically low deforestation rates increases [19] . Proposals have attempted to address this potential for leakage by: Adjusting the reference level for countries with his-

torically low deforestation rates [18,20] based on assumptions of increased future rates of deforestation; Maintaining the sum of national references levels

equal to the global reference level through a flexible combination of higher reference levels for countries with historically low deforestation rates and lower reference levels for countries with historically high deforestation rates [21] ; Forward-looking projections possibly averaged over

time [22] ; Historical emissions with a share of funds withheld

to stabilize stocks [23] .

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While the studies cited above have analyzed aspects of effectiveness and efficiency of different reference level designs [24,25] , the perceived equity in the distribution of financial incentives for REDD+ may emerge as a critical issue in international negotiations. The international equity dimension of REDD+ has only recently been precisely defined and analyzed in depth [Cattaneo A, Lubowski R, Busch J et al. On international equity in reducing emissions from deforestation. Environ. Sci. Policy. Manuscript Submitted] .

The ana lysis compares the equity impacts of five proposed reference level designs using a partial equilibrium model examining the distribution of financial incentives among tropical forest countries. The analysis considers two possible measures of equity that are relevant for REDD+ mechanisms:

Equity measure 1: equity relative to endowment of

carbon – this can be interpreted as compensation commensurate with carbon stock, and is measured in REDD+ incentives in US$/total tons of carbon in standing forest. The equity measure is based on the incentives offered. If the country agrees to participate in REDD then the incentives will equal the revenue from REDD. This measure captures the concern that over time, without a priori information, any hectare of forest could potentially be deforested and its carbon emitted into the atmosphere. Equity measure 2: equity relative to total opportunity

costs – countries reducing emissions from deforestation may have very different opportunity costs, and this measure reflects the extent to which countries receive equivalent returns or profit margins given the costs borne to achieve REDD+. The measure could be viewed as ‘equal compensation for equal effort.’ These two measures reflect two notions of equity. Results of the ana lysis indicate that the proposals trigger similar aggregate emissions reductions (effectiveness) but lead to different outcomes in efficiency and alternative measures of equity. Among the mechanism design options compared, withholding a portion of the carbon price to fund stock stabilization is the approach with the highest overall performance across the metrics considered (i.e., environmental effectiveness, costefficiency and equity). This proposal appears equitable relative to both carbon stocks and opportunity cost, and also achieves the dual goals of cost-efficiency and broad participation for environmental effectiveness. However, if equity is measured as the financial incentive relative to a country’s forest carbon stock, then a REDD+ mechanism compensating a uniform share of at-risk carbon stocks is the most equitable, but at a considerable additional cost.



In addition to the distributional aspects of REDD across countries, discussed above, it is important to note that there are also within-country issues that are not necessarily addressed with an international mechanism; for example, traditional forest users and the transaction costs of implementing REDD+ on the ground are also of great interest and are being investigated [26–28] . Moving beyond REDD+ Near-term actions for REDD are clearly an integral component of a portfolio of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. However, REDD+ in isolation cannot solve the climate change conundrum, or even fully address the land-based component. A longterm, sustainable effort to manage terrestrial carbon effectively must address the full range of land cover and land uses both within and outside of the tropics. Temperate and boreal forests are included in the emissions inventories and the accounting of Annex I countries under the Kyoto Protocol. The ‘equivalent’ of REDD+ in these countries is land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF); the LULUCF framework may soon be updated and become a framework for agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU). AFOLU also has a number of issues being studied and negotiated, but discussion of this is beyond the scope of this article. The ultimate test for REDD+ and AFOLU will be whether they actually work to reduce emissions and encourage carbon sequestration (i.e., whether they effectively help stabilize the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). Perhaps the largest uncertainty in the global carbon cycle, and the uncertainty of most concern, is the residual terrestrial carbon sink. That sink is defined as the difference between total carbon emissions (fossil fuels and land use) and total known sinks (atmosphere and ocean). Approximately 45% of total anthropogenic emissions of carbon over the period 2000–2008 accumulated in the atmosphere, as well as 26% in the oceans and 29% on land [29] . The accumulation on land does not include the uptake of carbon resulting from land use and landuse change, which is included in the net emissions. The residual terrestrial carbon sink is thought to result from some combination of three ‘processes’: a global terrestrial response to changes in the environment (e.g., CO2 fertilization, N deposition and changes in climate), changes in disturbance regimes, or errors in one or more of the other global terms (hence, the term ‘residual’; the residual terrestrial sink has never been measured). The good news about the residual terrestrial sink is that it has kept atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide from increasing any faster than they have. The land and oceans accumulated 55% of carbon emissions during the period 2000–2008. The not-so-good news is that the fraction of emissions remaining in the


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atmosphere appears to be increasing Key terms (i.e., ocean and/or land sinks are Residual terrestrial sink: The difference beginning to decline) [29] . Thus, the between total carbon emissions (e.g., fossil fuels and land use) and total future of the residual terrestrial sink known sinks (atmosphere and ocean). It is uncertain, all the more so as the is attributable to some combination of earth warms and as anthropogenic three ‘processes’: a global terrestrial landscapes replace natural lands. If response to changes in the environment (CO2 fertilization, N deposition, changes this natural sink were to diminish, in climate); changes in disturbance managing the global carbon cycle regimes; or errors in one or more of the would be that much more difficult. other global terms (hence, the term ‘residual’: the residual terrestrial sink is Ongoing investigation into the defined by difference; it has never been terrestrial carbon cycle in all regions observed or measured). and at all scales is therefore critical to understanding and effectively responding to global climate change. Continued investigation of tropical forest carbon dynamics is complemented by examination of other land uses and processes, including the rapidly changing terrestrial carbon dynamics in the Arctic [30,31] , fluxes of terrestrial carbon from rivers [32,33] , and the carbon dynamics of nonforest ecosystems, including agriculture and coastal ecosystems [34,35] . A more complete understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle will contribute to our ability to both anticipate and respond to anthropogenic perturbations of the climate system. Future perspective: the roles of science & policy in tropical terrestrial carbon management Over the last 30 years, the scientific community has quantified the global impacts of anthropogenic activities on terrestrial carbon stocks and fluxes. This work helps to reveal opportunities for terrestrial carbon management and measures to address climate change. At present and in the future, the effectiveness of long-term terrestrial carbon management, including the permanence of carbon benefits resulting from REDD+ incentives, depends upon our ability to monitor and assess the consequences of all land use and land use change decisions. Progress toward understanding and quantifying the terrestrial carbon cycle will continue to reveal new and enhanced opportunities to manage humanity’s impacts on carbon pools and fluxes. Policy frameworks must not only be flexible enough to accept and incorporate incremental increases in knowledge and larger shifts in understanding, but must also create pathways for this new knowledge to be translated into management. The scientific community, for its part, must continue to be receptive to the need for accurate, timely information that will help environmental decision makers effectively, efficiently and equitably address global climate change. The REDD+ mechanism currently under consideration was proposed as a way to provide near-term climate change mitigation by keeping tropical forests standing. The reduced emissions must be evaluated relative to


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other competing uses of land, including agriculture, ecosystem services, urban development and carbon storage. Although REDD+ can serve to jump-start the process of tropical terrestrial carbon management, it is only the first step in the long-term sustainable management of land use and land-use change and the co-benefits that may arise from such management. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Financial & competing interests disclosure Research was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Google.org Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and NASA’s Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Focus Area. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript. Executive su

Executive summary The road to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus

Scientific research over 30 years has determined the emissions of carbon from tropical deforestation. The proportion of anthropogenic carbon emissions from tropical deforestation (currently 12–15%) has been declining as fossil fuel emissions proportionally increase.

Current emissions of carbon from tropical deforestation are the largest nonfossil fuel source of carbon, and reducing them would contribute significantly to slowing the increase in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Reducing emissions from deforestation (RED) was first formally introduced at the 11th Conference of the Parties in 2005. It has subsequently been expanded, first to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and, most recently, to REDD+. Current advances in implementing REDD Significant progress has been made in the past year on two aspects of REDD+ implementation that demonstrate the synergy between the scientific and policy processes. Mapping & monitoring pan-tropical above-ground woody biomass Data from satellites provide accurate measurement of rates of tropical deforestation and above-ground carbon densities of forests. High spatial resolution of carbon density leads to more accurate estimates of carbon emissions because the density of the forests actually deforested can be obtained. Future satellites with even greater capabilities are being designed. An effective, efficient & equitable international REDD+ mechanism Reference levels are key to determining the effectiveness, cost-efficiency and equity of a REDD+ mechanism. Several proposals for determining reference levels have been advanced. Recent analyses have begun to evaluate notions of equity in the distributional aspects of REDD+ across countries. Equity issues within countries are also receiving attention. Moving beyond REDD+ REDD+ by itself cannot fully address even the land-based component of climate change. Research must address temperate zone and boreal forests as well as tropical forests and must consider other changes in land use besides deforestation. One of the greatest uncertainties in managing terrestrial carbon stocks is the response of ecosystems to climatic change. The fraction of total carbon emissions taken up by land and ocean has remained remarkably constant over recent decades, but there is concern that these sinks are beginning to saturate, making management of the carbon cycle much more difficult.

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