It brings together an interdisciplinary team of political and natural ecologists and ecosystem modelers and aims to comprehensively assess the quality of REDD+ carbon credits when it comes to reducing deforestation, generating high-quality carbon credits and protecting forest communities.
REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is the project type with the most credits on the voluntary carbon market, accounting for about a quarter of all credits to date. The study focuses on five key programme elements: baselines, leakage, forest carbon accounting, durability and safeguards.
The researchers found that estimates of emissions reductions were exaggerated across all quantification factors they reviewed when compared to the published literature and an independent quantitative project assessment. They say: “As a result, current REDD+ methodologies likely generate credits that represent a small fraction of their claimed climate benefit. Safeguard policies, presented as ensuring “no net harm” to forest communities, in practice have been treated as voluntary guidance.”
While many studies have documented poor carbon offset quality, the new analysis goes a step further in exploring the underlying reasons credit quality is poor. In some cases, the researchers say the methodologies did not align with good practice. Moreover, when the requirements were vague or flexible, they found that developers commonly made methodological choices that led to more credits and the auditors commonly did not enforce conservativeness, accuracy and “even reasonableness”.
Their overall conclusion is that REDD+ is ill-suited to the generation of carbon credits for use as offsets. They suggest a number of other actions that private actors can take or support that together can help to reduce tropical deforestation.
*Photo credit: James Shook of Ulva Island, New Zealand, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
A foundation started by a Gates Cambridge Scholar is leading a Cambridge Festival event in March to celebrate agricultural innovation in Africa where a new project on food security will be launched. The Agri-Innovation & Impact Project (AGRIIP) will be launched at the Roots of Resilience event on 27th March. It is designed to empower […]
It was during his master’s that Alex Myhill [2022] was introduced to Earth Science and realised just how much we don’t understand about the Earth. He wanted to explore further and his PhD seeks to understand the dynamics that make the Earth tick. He is developing new techniques for the efficient computation of whole Earth […]
Five Scholars will speak about their ideas that could change the world at this year’s Cambridge Festival as part of the ongoing celebrations for Gates Cambridge’s 25th anniversary. The Festival programme has been published today and includes the Gates Cambridge event – Ideas that could change the world – hosted by international journalist Catherine Galloway […]
Vaccinations alone may not be enough to protect people with compromised immune systems from infection, even if the vaccine has generated the production of antibodies, according to new research from the University of Cambridge led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar. The findings, published today in Science Advances, suggest that such individuals will need regular vaccine […]
