How do we know whether or not a REDD project is actually reducing deforestation and forest degradation? Satellite data is one increasingly popular answer. Computers can be trained to use the data to detect deforestation and changes in land use and plot the information on easy to read maps.
Tag: Carbon accounting
California’s “lenient leakage accounting” means that emissions reductions from forest offsets may never happen
California’s cap-and-trade scheme has resulted in payments of hundreds of millions of dollars to forest owners. But a recent policy brief by Barbara Haya at the University of California, Berkeley argues that California may have exaggerated the emissions reductions of these forestry projects by as much as 80 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Vision 2050 Forestry in Ghana: The inequities of a carbon credit project
A company called Vision 2050 Forestry claims to be the “leading forestry company in West Africa”. According to the company, between September 2008 and February 2010 more than 300,000 people signed up to Vision 2050 Forestry’s Carbon Credit Project. The company claims that 150 million trees were planted and “five million people are expected to…
Double-counting: What if both Brazil and California want Acre’s REDD credits?
Carlos Klink, secretary of the climate change unit at Brazil’s environment ministry, recently told Bloomberg that Brazil would use REDD credits generated in the country to meet its own emissions targets. Where does that leave California, which is considering using REDD credits from the Brazilian state of Acre?
“Carbon released from fossil fuels is not equivalent to the carbon stored in trees.” New report from FERN
“It is a mistake to think that emissions from fossil fuels can be negated by increasing or protecting the storage potential of forests and other land based carbon.”