Climate change : financing global forests : the Eliasch review

Preface ix Background papers xi Acknowledgements xiii Executive summary xv 1. Introduction 1 1.1 The impacts of climate change 2 1.2 Climate change mitigation 5 1.3 Forests and climate change 6 1.4 Forest communities and ecosystem services 8 1.5 The scope of this Review 10 Part I: The challenge of deforestation 2. Forests, climate change and the global economy 15 2.1 Forests and the carbon cycle 16 2.2 Impacts of human activities on the forest carbon cycle 18 2.3 Impacts of forests on climate change 23 2.4 Modelling future impacts 26 2.5 Conclusion 33 3. The drivers of deforestation 35 3.1 Why are trees being cut down? 36 3.2 Population growth and wealth creation 37 3.3 Growing demand for agricultural products and timber 39 3.4 Current economic incentives for landowners to deforest 41 3.5 Policy incentives 42 3.6 Land tenure 44 3.7 Capacity 45 3.8 Forest transitions over time 47 3.9 Conclusion 48 vi 4. Sustainable production and poverty reduction 49 4.1 Introduction 50 4.2 Land availability 50 4.3 A vision of sustainable production 52 4.4 Sustainable production and conservation 53 4.5 Infrastructure and alternative employment 58 4.6 Forest conservation 60 4.7 Key levers for shifting to more sustainable production 62 4.8 Conclusion 68 5. The costs of mitigation 69 5.1 Introduction 70 5.2 Up-front and ongoing mitigation costs 70 5.3 Ongoing forest emissions reduction costs 71 5.4 Estimating the opportunity costs of avoided deforestation 72 5.5 Estimating the costs of purchasing forest emissions abatement 75 5.6 The benefi ts of taking action to reduce forest emissions 77 5.7 Conclusion 80 Part II: Forests and the international climate change framework: the long-term goal 6. A long-term framework for tackling climate change 83 6.1 Overall framework for tackling climate change 84 6.2 Criteria for a successful climate change framework 85 6.3 Comparison of options for achieving global climate stabilisation 90 6.4 Rationale for including forests within a global cap and trade system 95 6.5 Four key elements of a long-term framework 98 6.6 Conclusion 99 7. The current international climate change framework 101 7.1 Current international action 102 7.2 The United Nations Rio Conventions 102 7.3 The importance of the Kyoto Protocol 107 7.4 Limitations of the fi rst Kyoto commitment period 111 7.5 Bali Action Plan 117 7.6 Conclusion 117 vii Part III: The building blocks of forest fi nancing: the medium-term approach 8. Transition to a long-term framework 121 8.1 Introduction 122 8.2 Types of transition path 123 8.3 A three-stage transition process: short, medium and long term 125 8.4 Conclusion 127 9. Effective targets for reducing forest emissions 129 9.1 Introduction 130 9.2 Baseline level 130 9.3 Determining the baseline 133 9.4 Baseline trajectories 141 9.5 Conclusion 143 10. Measuring and monitoring emissions from forests 145 10.1 The importance of robust measuring and monitoring 146 10.2 Measuring carbon stocks in forests 147 10.3 Monitoring and verifying emissions and sequestration 155 10.4 International and national approaches to measuring and monitoring 159 10.5 Capacity building: expertise and costs 162 10.6 Conclusion 164 11. Linking to carbon markets 165 11.1 Introduction 167 11.2 Carbon markets: supply and demand 168 11.3 Price impacts of linking forest credits to emissions trading schemes 174 11.4 Scale of carbon market fi nance for forest abatement 182 11.5 Linking mechanism 184 11.6 Conclusion 189 12. Governance and distribution of fi nance 191 12.1 Introduction 192 12.2 National-level governance 192 12.3 Distribution of fi nance 196 12.4 International governance 205 12.5 Conclusion 210 viii Part IV: International action, capacity building and short-term funding 13. The funding gap and capacity building 213 13.1 Introduction 214 13.2 Research, analysis and knowledge sharing 214 13.3 Policy and institutional reform 216 13.4 Demonstration activities 219 13.5 Meeting the funding gap 222 13.6 Coordination and governance of public funding 229 13.7 Conclusion 232 14. Conclusions 233 14.1 Introduction 234 14.2 The forest sector in a global climate change deal 234 14.3 International cooperation to support capacity building 236 14.4 Coordinated international action to deliver fi nance effectively 237 14.5 Conclusion 238 Bibliography 241 Index 251