The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD Programme) is a collaboration between FAO, UNDP and UNEP. A multi-donor trust fund was established in July 2008 that allows donors to pool resources and provides funding to activities towards this programme.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the cutting down of forests is now contributing close to 20 per cent of the overall greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. Forest degradation also makes a significant contribution to emissions from forest ecosystems. Therefore there is an immediate need to make significant progress in reducing deforestation, forest degradation, and associated emission of greenhouse gases.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agenda item on “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries and approaches to stimulate action” was first introduced at the Conference of the Parties (COP11) in December 2005 by the governments of Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, supported by eight other Parties. The challenge was to establish a functioning international REDD finance mechanism that can be included in an agreed post-2012 global climate change framework. Progress has been made and the need to meet the challenge is now reflected in the Bali Action Plan and the COP13 Decision 2/CP.13. A functioning international REDD finance mechanism needs to be able to provide the appropriate revenue streams to the right people at the right time to make it worthwhile for them to change their forest resource use behaviour.

In response to the COP13 decision, requests from countries, and encouragement from donors, FAO, UNDP and UNEP have developed a collaborative REDD programme. The UN-REDD Programme is aimed at tipping the economic balance in favour of sustainable management of forests so that their formidable economic, environmental and social goods and services benefit countries, communities and forest users while also contributing to important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to generate the requisite transfer flow of resources to significantly reduce global emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The immediate goal is to assess whether carefully structured payment structures and capacity support can create the incentives to ensure actual, lasting, achievable, reliable and measurable emission reductions while maintaining and improving the other ecosystem services forests provide.

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From:   Charles McNeill
Senior Policy Advisor
United Nations Development Programme
The UN-REDD Programme is having an event at the current climate change meeting in Bonn:

MRV, MULTIPLE BENEFITS & GOVERNANCE: KEY ISSUES FOR REDD IMPLEMENTATION

Tuesday, 9 June 2009
1:00pm – 3:00pm

Solar Room, Ministry of Environment , Bonn

Speakers:

Peter Holmgren, Director, Environment, Climate Change & Bioenergy Division, FAO

Barney Dickson, Head of the Climate Change & Biodiversity Programme, UNEP-WCMC

Rosalind Reeves, Forest Campaign Manager, Global Witness &
Laura Furones, Regional Manager for Latin America Forest Team, Global Witness

Charles McNeill, Senior Policy Advisor, UNDP

Monitoring systems that will allow credible and affordable Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of REDD performance are critical for successful implementation of any REDD scheme.   Many countries are in the early phases of designing such systems by preparing and testing technical methodologies for accurate measurements, including field measurements and remote sensing, to enable monitoring of emissions from forests and land use.

MRV requirements under REDD are about trends in emission levels and therefore concern the stock and flows of forest carbon.   Specific MRV requirements will be determined through the UNFCCC process, building on IPCC guidelines.   Additionally, for REDD to be successfully   delivered by countries, alignment with national development contexts is needed to address synergies and trade-offs among multiple benefits (including livelihoods, biodiversity and ecosystem services).

The aim of the event is to support countries in developing appropriate institutional and governance mechanisms to operationalize MRV systems. Speakers will also describe ongoing work of the UN system on multiple benefits beyond carbon.   Implementation issues at the national level including institutional capacities will be explored.   The CSO speakers will address the governance and independent monitoring aspects of MRV for REDD.

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The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)   announced its latest CLIMATE related publications:

 - Incentives to sustain forest ecosystem services: A review and lessons for REDD
Paying people to protect forests can be an effective way to tackle deforestation and climate change but only if there is good governance of natural resources, claims this study funded by Norway’s Government. IIED, the World Resources Institute and the Center for International Forestry Research looked at existing efforts to pay people in developing nations to protect ecosystems in return for the services — such as fresh water, wild foods and climate control — they provide. It aimed to see if such payments could be used to help tackle climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). A review of 13 schemes that make payments for ecosystems services in Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America concluded that performance-based payments can be part of REDD but only if important preconditions are met.
 http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=1…

 - Community-based adaptation to climate change: an update
Over a billion people – the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities   – will bear the brunt of climate change. For them, building local capacity to cope is a vital step towards resilience. Community-based adaptation (CBA) is emerging as a key response to this challenge. Tailored to local cultures and conditions, CBA supports and builds on autonomous adaptations to climate variability, such as the traditional baira or floating gardens of Bangladesh, which help small farmers’ crops survive climate-driven floods. Above all, CBA is participatory – a process involving both local stakeholders, and development and disaster risk reduction practitioners. As such, it builds on existing cultural norms while addressing local development issues that contribute to climate vulnerability. CBA is now gaining ground in many regions, and is ripe for the reassessment offered here.
 http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=1…