REDD+ and climate: thinking beyond carbon

Abstract

Scientific research shows that deforestation can drive climate not only through changes in carbon stocks but also through biophysical feedbacks. These can alter the climate effectiveness of emission reductions and will thus have important implications for REDD+. Explored here are the implications for motivating tropical developing country participation, and for motivating efforts to measure integrated biophysical–carbon climate impacts of land use change. In the tropics, biophysical impacts of deforestation are found to enhance local warming, which suggests that REDD+ participants benefit from a locally concentrated good in the form of local climate impacts, in addition to the global public good in the form of emissions reductions. To capture the breadth of climate impacts of land use change, composite biophysical–carbon indices have been proposed, but are hampered by issues of scale and uncertainty. These issues must at least be acknowledged in policy discussions to allow land-based initiatives to move forward in a holistic manner.