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Generating carbon finance through avoided deforestation and its potential to create climatic, conservation and human development benefits.

ABSTRACT: Recent proposals to compensate developing countries for reducing emissions from deforestation (RED) under forthcoming climate change mitigation regimes are receiving increasing attention. Here we demonstrate that if RED credits were traded on international carbon markets, even moderate decreases in deforestation rates could generate billions of Euros annually for tropical forest conservation. We also discuss the main challenges for a RED mechanism that delivers real climatic benefits. These include providing sufficient incentives while only rewarding deforestation reductions beyond business-as-usual scenarios, addressing risks arising from forest degradation and international leakage, and ensuring permanence of emission reductions. Governance may become a formidable challenge for RED because some countries with the highest RED potentials score poorly on governance indices. In addition to climate mitigation, RED funds could help achieve substantial co-benefits for biodiversity conservation and human development. However, this will probably require targeted additional support because the highest biodiversity threats and human development needs may exist in countries that have limited income potentials from RED. In conclusion, how successfully a market-based RED mechanism can contribute to climate change mitigation, conservation and development will strongly depend on accompanying measures and carefully designed incentive structures involving governments, business, as well as the conservation and development communities.

SUBMITTER: Ebeling J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2610211 | biostudies-literature | 2008 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Generating carbon finance through avoided deforestation and its potential to create climatic, conservation and human development benefits.

Ebeling Johannes J Yasué Maï M

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 20080501 1498

Recent proposals to compensate developing countries for reducing emissions from deforestation (RED) under forthcoming climate change mitigation regimes are receiving increasing attention. Here we demonstrate that if RED credits were traded on international carbon markets, even moderate decreases in deforestation rates could generate billions of Euros annually for tropical forest conservation. We also discuss the main challenges for a RED mechanism that delivers real climatic benefits. These incl ...[more]

PMID: 18267904

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Project description:Integrated high-resolution maps of carbon stocks and biodiversity that identify areas of potential co-benefits for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation can help facilitate the implementation of global climate and biodiversity commitments at local levels. However, the multi-dimensional nature of biodiversity presents a major challenge for understanding, mapping and communicating where and how biodiversity benefits coincide with climate benefits. A new integrated approach to biodiversity is therefore needed. Here, we (a) present a new high-resolution map of global above- and below-ground carbon stored in biomass and soil, (b) quantify biodiversity values using two complementary indices (BIp and BIr) representing proactive and reactive approaches to conservation, and (c) examine patterns of carbon-biodiversity overlap by identifying 'hotspots' (20% highest values for both aspects). Our indices integrate local diversity and ecosystem intactness, as well as regional ecosystem intactness across the broader area supporting a similar natural assemblage of species to the location of interest. The western Amazon Basin, Central Africa and Southeast Asia capture the last strongholds of highest local biodiversity and ecosystem intactness worldwide, while the last refuges for unique biological communities whose habitats have been greatly reduced are mostly found in the tropical Andes and central Sundaland. There is 38 and 5% overlap in carbon and biodiversity hotspots, for proactive and reactive conservation, respectively. Alarmingly, only around 12 and 21% of these proactive and reactive hotspot areas, respectively, are formally protected. This highlights that a coupled approach is urgently needed to help achieve both climate and biodiversity global targets. This would involve (1) restoring and conserving unprotected, degraded ecosystems, particularly in the Neotropics and Indomalaya, and (2) retaining the remaining strongholds of intactness. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.

Dataset Information

Generating carbon finance through avoided deforestation and its potential to create climatic, conservation and human development benefits.

Publications

Generating carbon finance through avoided deforestation and its potential to create climatic, conservation and human development benefits.

Similar Datasets

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