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Abstract
Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation
account for about 25% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions but
cannot be credited under current climate change agreements. In the
discussions around the architecture of the post-2012 climate regime, the
possibility of including credits for reduced emissions from deforestation
arises. The paper reviews two approaches for this, compensated reductions
(CR) as proposed by Santilli et al. and the Joint Research Centre proposal
that combine voluntary commitments by non-Annex I countries to reduce
emissions from deforestation with carbon market financing. Both approaches
have the clear advantages of simplicity and the possibility of fitting to
an evolving greenhouse gas emission reduction regime. The authors consider
the strengths and limitations of each proposal and build upon them to
address several implementation challenges and options for improvement.
Given the urgency of avoiding dangerous climate change, the timely
development of technically sound, politically acceptable, cost-effective
and practicable measures to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation is essential. These two approaches take us a step closer to
this goal, but they need to be refined rapidly to enable this goal to be
realised.
Keywords: Compensated reductions; Avoided deforestation; Carbon credits
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