Five years after Parties endorsed the Bali Roadmap, we are far down the road on several REDD+ issues, but all over the map on others.
It’s now time for SBSTA to complete recommendations on Monitoring and MRV and to move forward on safeguards, reference levels and drivers of deforestation.
Though tracking emissions, removals and changes in carbon stocks are necessary, counting carbon tonnes alone is not sufficient for successful Monitoring and MRV. To ensure REDD delivers benefits for the climate, forests and peoples, Monitoring and MRV must contribute to the sustainability and permanence of pollution reductions. To contribute to this, Parties should build further consensus on the technical review of reference levels, on comparability and consistency of units of measurement in pilot testing and implementation, and on information systems for safeguards.
SBSTA’s decisions must also be applied consistently throughout REDD+ readiness activities, pilot programs and implementation with results-based incentives. Further, REDD+ policies will not significantly reduce deforestation and forest degradation unless they also minimize the internationally-driven, demand-side drivers on the world’s forests.
Compared to other mitigation strategies with long lead times, REDD+ activities make unique contributions to enhanced mitigation action, as well as deliver non-carbon benefits, before 2020 and after 2020. The reverse is also true, once forests are lost, the opportunity for REDD+ is gone forever.
Pessimists are saying that REDD+ is dead. SBSTA37 and COP18 can prove them wrong.