Locating international REDD+ power relations: Debating forests and trees in international climate negotiations

Rowe, Elana Wilson

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.09.008

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The success of REDD+ as a post-Kyoto regime depends upon the willingness of developed countries to accept differentiated responsibilities to provide adequate resources for REDD+, and to give compensation to developing countries for their acceptance of the obligation to reduce emissions through deforestation and forest degradation. Initially, REDD+ focused on the single function (either the storage of carbon or the emission of carbon) of forests and privileged the expertise of economists and remote sensing specialists [54]. However, now the global debate has gradually deviated into safeguards and compensation mechanisms [70].…”

Section: Discussion: Connecting the Storylines To Broader Climate Chamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The recent National REDD+ Strategy of Nepal has emphasized the non-carbon benefit aspect [57]. However, this idea is still clearly underdeveloped [54]. This group of storylines also urges for governance reform.…”

Section: Discussion: Connecting the Storylines To Broader Climate Chamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The safeguards storyline recognizes that building robust safeguards helps to prevent negative impacts on non-carbon benefits while working for carbon benefits [8,54]. The respondents who believe in the safeguards storyline contend that REDD+ can be compatible with existing community forestry if strong safeguards are put in place, as noted below:…”

Section: Redd+ Policy Researchermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This storyline goes beyond the minimum set of safeguards and advocates for the promotion of co-benefits in REDD+ policies and practices [54]. It emphasizes the social dimensions of REDD+ governance in terms of capacity building and in addressing the social drivers of deforestation and forest degradation [1,55,56].…”

Section: Non-carbon Benefit/beyond Carbonmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Framing REDD+ at National Level: Actors and Discourse around Nepal’s Policy Debate

Bastakoti

Davidsen

2017

Forests

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Forests and carbon sequestration have become fundamental themes in climate change mitigation. The idea of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) has generated significant interest in forest governance from United Nations (UN) climate strategies over the past decade. REDD+ was initially hailed as a smart and cost-effective way to mitigate climate change. As it is rolling out, ambiguities and controversies are increasingly surfacing to the stakeholders at different levels. Examining the forest governance of Nepal in detail, this research examines how relationships between national and local forest actors have changed, and how REDD+ discourses have evolved among them at the interface between global interests in carbon commodification on one hand, and local realities of community forestry on the other hand. To better understand these competing positions, the study uses a post-structural political ecology perspective with elements of discourse analysis. Using data from interviews with policy actors and members of three local community forest user groups, focus group discussions, policy event observations, and document reviews, this paper highlights how global forest carbon commodification has been affecting community forestry governance. It also illustrates different storylines that actors employ to influence policy discourse and REDD+ debates, indicating a considerable range of problem definitions and policy solutions of climate change among the actors. The analysis highlights the connection between power relationships and the evolution of discourses surrounding REDD+, and how an external discourse can reinforce or challenge local governance and the centralization of forest authority. As such, the research also offers a new application of discursive storylines to climate change discourse analysis across national and local scales. The findings emphasize the importance of a more open and transparent dialogue across Nepal's forest governance and management levels to ensure actual benefits for healthy forests, strong communities, and effective climate change mitigation. Nepal's findings also suggest highly relevant lessons to other developing countries with significant community forest governance, and a strong planned focus on REDD+.

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Section: Discussion: Connecting the Storylines To Broader Climate Chamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussion: Connecting the Storylines To Broader Climate Chamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Redd+ Policy Researchermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Non-carbon Benefit/beyond Carbonmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Framing REDD+ at National Level: Actors and Discourse around Nepal’s Policy Debate

Bastakoti

Davidsen

2017

Forests

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“…According to Rowe [68], the competencies the actors may hold influence the outcomes of a given issue-and it may be for instance knowledge and expert authority or material wealth/donor status, or the possession of forest resources. This allows the "player to play the game more or less successfully" in public policies [68]. Consequently, Krott et al [62] developed actor-centered power which is closely linked to Weber's (2000) definition of power as the "probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance" ( [62], p. 36).…”

Section: Bureaucratic Politics and Actor-centered Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

International and Domestic Sustainable Forest Management Policies: Distributive Effects on Power among State Agencies in Bangladesh

2016

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Abstract:The last two decades of forest policy discussions have been dominated by calls for sustainable management of forest resources. Consequently, multiple international and domestic policies, supporting sustainable forest management (SFM), have evolved in numerous jurisdictions. Policies in developing countries often rely on foreign donors' projects, which supplement domestic SFM policy. These policies assign various policy tasks to specific public bureaucracies, who then compete for these very tasks, as well as the related staff and budgets. Therefore, project and policy task assignment greatly influences bureaucratic power. This article analyzes the distributive effects of SFM policy on power (in terms of coercion, incentives and dominant information) among relevant domestic and foreign donor bureaucracies in Bangladesh. Concepts from power theory, bureaucratic politics theory, and concepts of policy and policy process were combined to analyze 121 Bangladeshi SFM policies from 1992-2013, which assign a total of 1012 policy tasks to specific public bureaucracies. Using qualitative content analysis, inferences about power were assigned to specific competing bureaucracies by the totality of SFM policies made. Results identify domestic and foreign bureaucracies whose power distribution benefit most from the SFM policies viz. their competitors. It is concluded that bureaucracies gaining the most power set the limits and directions in designing, implementing and evaluating various elements of any national SFM policies.

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Negative emissions and the long history of carbon removal

Carton

Asiyanbi

Beck

et al. 2020

WIREs Climate Change

156

100

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Recent IPCC assessments highlight a key role for large-scale carbon removal in meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement. This focus on removal, also referred to as negative emissions, is suggestive of novel opportunities, risks, and challenges in addressing climate change, but tends to build on the narrow techno-economic framings that characterize integrated assessment modeling. While the discussion on negative emissions bears important parallels to a wider and older literature on carbon sequestration and carbon sinks, this earlier scholarship-particularly from the critical social sciences-is seldom engaged with by the negative emissions research community. In this article, we survey this "long history" of carbon removal and seek to draw out lessons for ongoing research and the emerging public debate on negative emissions. We argue that research and policy on negative emissions should proceed not just from projections of the future, but also from an acknowledgement of past controversies, successes and failures. In particular, our review calls attention to the irreducibly political character of carbon removal imaginaries and accounting practices and urges acknowledgement of past experiences with the implementation of (small-scale) carbon sequestration projects. Our review in this way highlights the importance of seeing continuity in the carbon removal discussion and calls for more engagement with existing social science scholarship on the subject. Acknowledging continuity and embracing an interdisciplinary research agenda on carbon removal are important aspects in making climate change mitigation research more responsible, and a precondition to avoid repeating past mistakes and failures.

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Locating international REDD+ power relations: Debating forests and trees in international climate negotiations

Cited by 23 publications

References 46 publications

Framing REDD+ at National Level: Actors and Discourse around Nepal’s Policy Debate

Framing REDD+ at National Level: Actors and Discourse around Nepal’s Policy Debate

International and Domestic Sustainable Forest Management Policies: Distributive Effects on Power among State Agencies in Bangladesh

Negative emissions and the long history of carbon removal

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