Summary of the project: The project will address the leakage phenomenon in deforestation policies and thus contribute to international REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) policy design. A main challenge to the success of REDD+ will be to effectively address the driving forces behind land conversion, which are complex and so far insufficiently understood. If REDD fails to address underlying deforestation drivers this could result in a mere displacement of deforestation activities instead of a reduction, causing carbon leakage. Leakage from REDD could be significant as the mechanism will most likely have only limited international coverage, which could encourage the displacement of deforestation to countries that do not participate. This project will contribute to shedding light on three leakage issues: why does leakage occur and what are the drivers; the quantification of leakage effects, and how to minimize impacts on the effectiveness of climate change mitigation. To that end, we will a) analyse current methods for quantification of displacement of land use activities and identify potential gaps in comprehensive leakage accounting; and b) explore the role of trade as driver for deforestation and land use displacement by testing and extending existing methods to account for emissions from international trade in agricultural and forest products.

 

 

About carbon leakage: Carbon leakage refers to the displacement of greenhouse gas emissions from one place to another due to emission reduction activities. It is caused by a direct or indirect shift of emission-intense activities from within to outside an emissions accounting system e.g. REDD. Read more about accounting methods used for different leakage types and geographical scales of leakage in the Focali Brief 2012:01 written by Sabine Henders.