Overstated carbon emission reductions from voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) has gained international attention over the past decade, as manifested in both United Nations policy discussions and hundreds of voluntary projects launched to earn carbon-offset credits. There are ongoing discussions about whether and how projects should be integrated into national climate change mitigation efforts under the Paris Agreement. One consideration is whether these projects have generated additional impacts over and above national policies and other measures. To help inform these discussions, we compare the crediting baselines established ex-ante by voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon to counterfactuals constructed ex-post based on the quasi-experimental synthetic control method. We find that the crediting baselines assume consistently higher deforestation than counterfactual forest loss in synthetic control sites. This gap is partially due to decreased deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the early implementation phase of the REDD+ projects considered here. This suggests that forest carbon finance must strike a balance between controlling conservation investment risk and ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon emission offsets. Relatedly, our results point to the need to better align project- and national-level carbon accounting.

Carbon prospecting in tropical forests for climate change mitigation

“…Furthermore, the political ecology landscape of existing and new carbon investments within a host country may also influence and alter the risk of deforestation, which affects additionality, the long-term success of forest carbon projects, and ultimately the permanence of carbon credits or the diversion of development and deforestation to other locations (i.e., leakage effects) 10 , 11 . For example, the political risk for certified carbon credits has recently increased significantly in Brazil.…”

“…In fact, only the subset of forest carbon stocks that are under imminent threat of decline or loss if left unprotected by a conservation intervention may be certifiable 9 , 10 . This criterion of ‘additionality’ is a pre-condition for certifying all carbon credits, including nature-based credits traded in the voluntary carbon market, under the rules of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and REDD + programmes 9 , 11 .…”

Fire Occurrences and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

“…After the year 2000, high deforestation rates were observed in the period of 2002 to 2004, with an average of 24,939 km 2 . In this time span, the lowest deforestation occurred in 2012, equivalent to 4,561 km 2 following the voluntary REDD+ projects starting year [17]. Applying the same emission factors and other relevant data from Table 1, the total CO2 emissions for the period 2002-2004 and in 2012 were 752.3 Mton and 137.6 Mton on average, respectively.…”

“…From 2004 to 2012, there was a sharp decrease in annual deforestation rates, as indicated by the blue line in Figure 1B (correlation higher than 80%). Voluntary REDD+ (Reduce Emission from deforestation and forest Degradation in Developing countries) projects for the region started in 2008 [17]. By this time, Brazil was close to reaching the goal of reducing deforestation by 80% until 2020 (green, dashed line in Figure 1B) compared to the 1996-2005 period (black line).…”

Howland Forest, ME, USA: Multi-Gas Flux Record (CO2, CH4, N2O) Establishes New Forest Products Linked to Social Cost of Emission in Contrast to Carbon Limited Sequestration Proxies

“…Expanding multi-gas eddy covariance networks can provide equitable and economically attractive green policy [35] partnerships for the ~38 million km 2 representing ~25% of the world's land surface managed or land tenured by Indigenous Peoples [46]. In contrast, the high cost and maintenance of the UN-REDD program associated with mensuration protocols and Indigenous Peoples land management and rights represent barriers to entry and economic benefits, including discount pricing for carbon offsets [74], [75]. For example, REDD carbon offset prices average ~$3.65 tCO2 [76] and, if validated by the Ver-ified Carbon Standard, lower pricing, for example, of ~$1.62 tCO2 [76] is typical.…”