Concerns
IF REDD+ becomes a source of carbon credits
- The availability of a large supply of potentially cheap carbon credits could provide an avenue for companies in the developed world to simply purchase REDD credits without providing meaningful emission reductions at home.
- Large number of carbon credits could swamp developing carbon markets. However, they could also facilitate ambitious emissions targets in a post-Kyoto agreement.
- Putting a commercial value on forests neglects the spiritual value they hold for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
- The rise of "carbon cowboys" - unscrupulous entrepreneurs who attempt to acquire rights to carbon in rainforest by signing indigenous communities to unfair contracts, often with a view to on-selling the rights to investors for a quick profit. In 2012 an Australian businessman operating in Peru was revealed to have signed 200-year contracts with an Amazon tribe, the Yagua, many members of which are illiterate, giving him a 50 per cent share in their carbon resources. The contracts allow him to establish and control timber projects and palm oil plantations in Yagua rainforest.
If REDD+ is project-based and does not follow a national approach as mandated by COP16:
- There are risks that the local inhabitants and the communities that live in the forests, will be bypassed and they won't be consulted and so they won't actually receive any revenues
- Some projects are unaccountable and dodgy companies are taking advantage of the low governance.
If REDD+ is designed and implemented inadequately
- There is no consensus on a definition for forest degradation.
The risk is that baselines are set unrealistically by developing country authorities and it's not actually accurate around the forest's carbon stocks.
- Fair distribution of REDD benefits will not be achieved without a prior reform in forest governance and more secure tenure systems in many countries.
Read more about this topic: Reducing Emissions From Deforestation And Forest Degradation
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