BackgroundA mechanism for emission reductions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is very likely to be included in a future climate agreement. The choice of REDD baseline methodologies will crucially influence the environmental and economic effectiveness of the climate regime. We compare three different historical baseline methods and one innovative dynamic model baseline approach to appraise their applicability under a future REDD policy framework using a weighted multi-criteria analysis.ResultsThe results show that each baseline method has its specific strengths and weaknesses. Although the dynamic model allows for the best environmental and for comparatively good economic performance, its high demand for data and technical capacity limit the current applicability in many developing countries.ConclusionThe adoption of a multi-tier approach will allow countries to select the baseline method best suiting their specific capabilities and data availability while simultaneously ensuring scientific transparency, environmental effectiveness and broad political support.

The issues surrounding 'Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation' (REDD) have become a major component of continuing negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This paper aims to address two key requirements of any potential REDD mechanism: first, the generation of measurable, reportable and verifiable (MRV) REDD credits; and secondly, the sustainable and efficient provision of emission reductions under a robust financing regime.To ensure the supply of MRV credits, we advocate the establishment of an 'International Emission Reference Scenario Coordination Centre' (IERSCC). The IERSCC would act as a global clearing house for harmonized data to be used in implementing reference level methodologies. It would be tasked with the collection, reporting and subsequent processing of earth observation, deforestation- and degradation driver information in a globally consistent manner. The IERSCC would also assist, coordinate and supervise the computation of national reference scenarios according to rules negotiated under the UNFCCC. To overcome the threats of "market flooding" on the one hand and insufficient economic incentives for REDD on the other hand, we suggest an 'International Investment Reserve' (IIR) as REDD financing framework. In order to distribute the resources of the IIR we propose adopting an auctioning mechanism.Auctioning not only reveals the true emission reduction costs, but might also allow for incentivizing the protection of biodiversity and socio-economic values. The introduced concepts will be vital to ensure robustness, environmental integrity and economic efficiency of the future REDD mechanism.

REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the enhancement of carbon stocks) emerges as promising incentive mechanism for tropical forest protection. While REDD+ is expected to yield poverty reduction and biodiversity co-benefits, its mechanism design options pose several risks to socio-economic compatibility and environmental integrity. We conduct a REDD+ expert survey to rate the perceived importance and likelihood of these risks to national REDD+ implementation. The dependency of the risk perception on stakeholder characteristics is analyzed using seemingly unrelated regression analysis and ANOVA. Additionally, the survey investigates the perceived effectiveness of different policy options to minimize these risks. The majority of stakeholders viewed governance challenges as the largest risks to REDD+ implementation and preferred mandatory incentive and regulatory policy measures to mitigate them. Understanding these stakeholder perceptions will not only help improving national REDD+ implementation, but also provide insights for the international policy process