The Policy Context of Community Monitoring for REDD+

Among other issues relating to international policy to deal with climate change, the Copenhagen Accord of the UNFCCC (2009) ¹ formally indicates the resolve of the community of nations to create an international policy instrument relating to tropical forests, by which reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and increases in sequestration of CO₂ by forest sinks in developing countries, may be financially rewarded. This follows a statement by IPCC that forestry was the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions during the 1990s, after power production – 5.8Gt CO₂ equivalent per year – which is slightly more than the emissions from the transport sector (IPCC, 2007). Estimates in the scientific literature have put the contribution of forest emissions to total global greenhouse gas emissions as about 25 per cent (FAO, 2005), 20 per cent (Gibbs and Herold, 2007), 18 per cent (Angelsen et al, 2009) and 12 per cent (van der Werf et al, 2009), the lower values in general corresponding to more recent estimates of deforestation and to increases in overall greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in emerging economies. These values are still contested, but even the lowest estimates indicate that loss of forest, which takes place almost entirely in tropical areas, is a major contributor to atmospheric CO₂ levels, and therefore that this sector requires special consideration as regards mitigation. For this reason the parties to the UNFCCC are currently (mid-2010) discussing a new policy under the title ‘Reduced Emission from Deforestation in Developing Countries’. The current acronym for this policy is ‘REDD+’ and its full meaning will be elaborated in the section that follows.