Forests are an essential part of the climate change solution, and their effective conservation requires the empowerment of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, or IPLCs, a new report said.
The report by environmental Defense Fund also recommended an effective and equitable global REDD+ incentive-system for reducing deforestation should reward all relevant jurisdictions and actors, including both historical emitters and historical protectors of carbon stock, like IPLCs. We must eliminate forest loss in areas where it is already occurring.
At the same time, we must also avoid future increases in deforestation in areas of historically low forest loss – HFLD regions.
IPLCs must be actively included in the credit-generating process and given direct access to carbon finance available for REDD+ activities.
The “plus” in REDD+ represents the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks, along with the sustainable management of forests, which is exactly what HFLD crediting mechanisms encourage.
HFLD regions are areas recently connected with markets and for this reason, the people who steward them have maintained low rates of forest loss and have thus foregone revenue from logging and potential gains from alternative use of land. At the same time, economic development and increased revenue to improve social outcomes is an imperative in many HFLD jurisdictions.
The current carbon accounting framework, both for results-based payment and typical emission reduction crediting, uses FRELs based on recent historic measurements to gauge emissions reductions progress.
This approach effectively means that areas with the highest historic emissions (i.e., from deforestation) are the ones that can reduce their emissions the most and thus generate the greatest results.
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In addition, there are clear equity issues associated with only rewarding regions where deforestation has historically been allowed to increase.
The current accounting systems favor emission reduction and removal results in areas of historically high emissions, which has the consequence of effectively penalizing successful historic actions to preserve standing forests by excluding those peoples who have the greatest track record.
The World Bank’s steering committee and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday called for further reforms this year to expand the bank’s ability to respond to climate change, pandemics and other crises that are reversing development gains.
Yellen hosted talks with global finance officials to discuss an initial spate of balance sheet changes that will allow the World Bank to lend an additional $50 billion over 10 years while maintaining its top-tier AAA credit rating, and how to deepen those efforts with it and other multilateral development banks.
Yellen said the changes already approved had sharpened the mission of the World Bank, but more “bold action” was needed to ensure it could work to end extreme poverty, boost shared prosperity and better meet 21st century challenges like climate change, fragility and pandemics.
The bank’s steering committee – officially known as the Development Committee – met later in the day, where members welcomed the bank’s “Evolution Roadmap” and said they looked forward to additional efforts aimed at achieving “major milestones” by the October annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
“They expect the Board of Executive Directors and World Bank Group management to finalize a work plan with detailed actions to be taken,” the committee’s chair said in a statement.
Members underscored their commitment to “ensuring that the World Bank Group has adequate financial capacity to respond to development challenges and support its expanded mission.”
They called for ambitious approaches to increasing private capital, facilitating investment and leveraging the public sector.
