By Chris Lang, 29th November 2013 Source: REDD-Monitor
Negotiators at COP19 in Warsaw last week agreed seven decisions relating to REDD – the “Warsaw Framework for REDD Plus”. You can find each of the decision texts, as they came out of COP19 in Warsaw here.
This post looks at the decision on REDD finance, or, to give it its full title, the Work programme on results-based finance to progress the full implementation of the activities referred to in decision 1/CP.16, paragraph 70 (pdf file, 75 KB).
Before looking at the text itself, here’s a summary of the Warsaw decision on REDD Finance, followed by a few comments:
- Adequate and predictable payments should go to the Global South to stop deforestation. REDD is to be carried out in phases, including a national strategy or action plan, forest reference emission levels, a national monitoring system for REDD, and a system for providing information about how safeguards are being addressed and respected.
More money is needed for REDD. Money can come from just about anywhere, but may come from the Green Climate Fund. The finance will be results-based (expect when it goes to the phases of REDD mentioned above). The more countries receiving REDD funding, the better. Before receiving the finance, countries should provide a summary of how they are promoting and supporting safeguards.
Entities funding REDD (which may include the Green Climate Fund) should use the methodological guidance found in decisions taken at COPs 15-19. Entities should not stop other funding to forests.
REDD finance may come from market mechanisms. Or, it may come from non-market mechanisms.
The Standing Committee on Finance will invite experts on REDD to a Forum to talk about financing REDD.
“Non-carbon benefits” (i.e. all the other things that forests do apart from store carbon) are important.
The UNFCCC secretariat will post information about REDD results and finance on its REDD web portal. There will be links to reports about measuring, reporting and verifying; reference levels; safeguards; and national strategies or action plans. If there’s enough money to pay for it, that is.
The Warsaw REDD finance decision is not an agreement by anyone to finance REDD. It’s an agreement on what REDD finance might look like if there was any finance. This may encourage rich countries to finance REDD. But why would they do so?
To read the rest of Chris Lang’s analysis of the REDD “decision” click here
