Safeguarding REDD green peripheries

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity, as well as one of the largest failures faced by the market. Despite projections of climate-related reductions in global GDP of up to 20% and studies indicating compromise of the world’s water, food, and ecosystem services, international agreements confronting climate change remain difficult. This has led to a search for quick and easy solutions, resulting in a focus on the reduction of tropical deforestation and forest degradation, which contributes 6-17% of global CO2 emissions.

Efforts to address tropical deforestation and forest degradation have culminated in the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) program. REDD operates on the idea that it is cheaper to pay forest-based communities in developing nations to stop cutting down trees and change their land-use patterns than it is to get powerful companies in developed nations to reduce their emissions. In order to integrate these forests into the global carbon market, commodification of forests is required, on a level previously unseen. While REDD may be in the interest of heavily polluting developed nations, is it in the interests of the communities who live in these forests? Are forest-based communities given as much consideration in REDD readiness proposals as measures required for market integration? This study finds an overemphasis on market integration and a disregard for democratic methods of participation within REDD proposals. Social protections are underemphasized, placing forests, forest-based communities, and the hopes for cheap climate solutions all at risk.