REDD+ is one of the leading near-term options for global climate change mitigation. More than 300 subnational REDD+ initiatives have been launched across the tropics, responding to both the call for demonstration activities in the Bali Action Plan and the market for voluntary carbon offset credits.
This book describes 23 initiatives in six different countries, including their:
diverse biogeographic and socioeconomic contexts
strategies to reduce emissions over the three or more years that they have been in operation
local populations of smallholders, whose agricultural activities are important drivers of deforestation in most sites and who are thus key stakeholders in these initiatives
efforts to overcome or work around challenges in financing, implementing and monitoring REDD+
Early expectations of significant funding for REDD+ encouraged proponent organizations to test a wide range of strategies to reduce emissions while also delivering co-benefits. Only some have chosen the strategy of direct payments conditional on actions to reduce deforestation or degradation, and only a very few have sold carbon credits, demonstrating how REDD+ on the ground is actually a mix of old and new strategies.
Faced with enormous challenges, proponents have developed a menu of ways to: secure financial support; clarify forest tenure; cooperate and act across scales; measure, report and verify emissions; and respond to the imperative of safeguarding local livelihoods.
While subnational initiatives have successfully piloted and generated lessons for REDD+, many now face the choice of either ending or transforming into something else, due to the political uncertainty and funding constraints stemming from the failure to reach a global climate change agreement. This book highlights both the critical importance of such an agreement and in its absence, the creative ways that subnational initiatives are operating on the ground.
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