REDD+ Initiative by UNFCCC | UPSC

REDD + INITIATIVE

• It creates a financial value for the carbon stored in forests by offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development.
• Developing countries would receive results-based payments for results-based actions.
• REDD+ goes beyond simply deforestation and forest degradation and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

REDD+  AND UGANDA

• The results submission to the UNFCCC has paved the way for potential results-based payments to the country.
• Results-based payments comprise the final REDD+ phase.

• This is done through rigorous UN-backed technical evaluations.
• The country’s forest cover had depleted to 8 per cent from 24 per cent in the 1990s, largely attributed to human encroachment, including for charcoal, timber and agriculture.
• The document submitted by the government will help Uganda receive funds through the Green Climate Fund’s forest conservation scheme.

[wc_highlight color=”yellow” class=””]Uganda claimed it reduced emissions by 8,070,694 tonnes of carbon dioxide for 2015-2017[/wc_highlight] in a document prepared by its Ministry of Water and Environment, the REDD+ Secretariat and National Forestry Authority. 

DEFORESTATION AND FOREST DEGRADATION

• Deforestation accounts for approximately 11 percent of carbon emissions, more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.
• In order to constrain the impacts of climate change within limits, global average temperatures must be stabilized within two degrees Celsius.
• This will be practically impossible to achieve without reducing emissions from the forest sector.

REDD+ strategy launched in 2017:

• Developing plans and options for forest management to reduce carbon emissions
• Maintain valuable ecosystem services such as biodiversity
• Water supply
• Soil protection
• Wealth creation for sustainable livelihoods.

ARRESTING DEFORESTATION

• The REDD+ results showed deforestation reduced to 28,095 hectares (ha) per year over a two-year result period (2015-17) from a 50,147 ha per year average over a 15-year reference period (2000-15).
• This meant a 44 per cent reduction in the country’s rate of deforestation annually between 2015 and 2017, compared to estimates for 2000-15 and the protection of 20,052 ha every year on an average during 2015-2017.
• These estimates were drawn on data collected by the National Forest Authority.

REDD+ IN UGANDA

• In Uganda, the REDD+ program forms a part of the country’s National Climate Change Policy that aims for a harmonised and coordinated approach towards a climate-resilient and low-carbon development path for sustainable development.
• The country had launched its REDD+ programme in 2013.

SIGNIFICANT FOR AFRICA

• The submission of the is a significant development on REDD+ for Africa.
• This will encourage other African countries to reduce carbon emissions by decreasing deforestation and forest degradation.
• Achieving REDD+ results in the continent is challenging, as there are other development priorities — with agriculture, mining, energy and forestry — driving deforestation.
• Africa had the greatest annual rate of net forest loss, at 3.9 million ha, across the world in this decade.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REDD+ AND UN-REDD ?