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.
Tara Cookson’s research has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to women and development. Her PhD supervisor, Professor Sarah Radcliffe, called it “highly original”. Since leaving Cambridge Tara has continued to break new ground, founding the feminist research consultancy Ladysmith and taking up a Canada Research Chair in the School of Public […]
Sara Sherbaji’s research explores fundamental questions of what makes humans unique and the role culture plays in our evolution. Her questions build on her Master’s dissertation, on her work as a psychology lab coordinator and on her experience of fleeing the Syrian war. She says: “Since leaving Syria during the war, my goal has been […]
Charles Amo Yartey [2002] always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps as an accountant. Growing up in Ghana, he applied to do Business Administration at university, but, because he had not studied business at school, he was offered Economics. It proved to be the start of a fascinating career at the centre of global […]
Elections often reveal how deeply divided humanity can be. This year, as increasing polarisation continued to shape our world, we asked: Does this division transfer to our AI? Our journey to answer this question began in 2022, when we started our PhDs as Gates Cambridge Scholars. Two concurrent events captured this moment in history: the […]
