Reframing forest-sector climate actions

Abstract

Forests are a crucial component in the international efforts toward mitigating climate change. Achieving the potential contribution of forest climate actions, however, is challenging. Just as the technical issues like monitoring and MRV (measurement, reporting, and verification) must be addressed, the institutional issues of fulfilling the emission reduction and removal (ER&R) responsibility, including climate governance and finance, must be worked out. Compared to the broad attention that the technical issues have attracted, however, fewer studies have addressed the institutional issues. This article presents our perspective on how to tackle the institutional and technical issues coherently by asserting that it is paramount to build a more balanced portfolio of knowledge base and policy response. In addition to raising their climate ambitions, countries should consolidate their approaches to climate governance and nest local initiatives within the jurisdictional programs. They should also strengthen their means and measures for carrying out their commitments, including implementing more effective ER&R plans and enhancing carbon pricing mechanisms and public and private partnerships of climate investment. Thus, more research should be done on the comparative performance of alternative approaches to climate governance and nesting, and adopting more transparent standards, protocols, and methodologies. Further, greater attention should be directed to the longer-term, multi-dimensional effects of forest interventions with more reliable data and more robust techniques. Other than pursuing actions of the large, non-RBP (results-based payments) space, future research needs to examine not only the “results” but also the “payments” of RBP interventions.