Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in developing countries: Revisiting the assumptions

This paper provides a critical perspective to the debate on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

We do this by reviewing a) the science which proves that land-use change is a key contributor of greenhouse emissions globally, particularly in developing countries; b) the assumptions that halting deforestation may be competitive in terms of costs in comparison to other emission reduction options; c) the studies analyzing the complex drivers of deforestation d) the measures that developing countries have undertaken so far to address deforestation and e) the nature of the current policy proposals being discussed.

Such review allows us to argue that current REDD policy proposals may become an additional source of funding to build technical and institutional capacities and to provide incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation in some developing countries, but will not be able to solve the deforestation issue at a large scale in the short term.

However, ensuring synergies between international processes and sources of funding for development and environment, and promoting tools for the exercise of private authority in global forest governance, may help to speed up this process.

Estrada, M., E. Corbera, and K. Brown