| Introduction: Contextual introduction. Body: Explain some significance of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) initiatives for handling carbon emissions. Conclusion: Write a way forward. |
REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is the global endeavour to create an incentive for developing countries to protect, better manage and save their forest resources, thus contributing to the global fight against climate change. Three UN agencies- UNEP, UNDP and FAO have collaborated in the establishment of UN-REDD programme.
Significance of REDD initiatives:
- Simple: Funding rewards good forest management in developing countries and makes poor forest management, such as indiscriminate unenforced logging, less profitable than the sustainable alternative.
- Tropical rainforests are, next to ocean reefs, the richest ecosystems on Earth. Worldwide, forests are a treasure house of resources- to some 70 million people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
- Managing forests sustainably as they serve the people dependent on them, house of an extraordinary range of wild plants and animals, and meet the global imperative to sequester carbon.
- Forests can produce carbon credits on the basis of the CO2 they capture and store. These can be sold on international carbon markets. REDD offsets will take a significant part of this trade and provide resources to tropical countries.
- A hectare of tropical forest absorbs 50 to 100 tons of CO2 per annum.
- At a time of volatile global economics, it can be cheap in comparison to other mitigation activities, such as carbon capture or renewable energy.
REDD projects and programmes must lead directly to reductions in deforestation and degradation that would not have happened simply as a result of wider changes in the economy. A project baseline needs to be established to measure progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
