Verra, an international standards body focused on environmental and social markets, has published its new REDD methodology designed to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The publication of the methodology comes ahead of COP28, which gets under way later this week as the world continues its efforts to combat climate change. With deforestation accounting for around 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, protecting the world’s remaining forests will be critical to achieving global climate goals. In line with this, carbon markets have a key role to play in mobilising capital to REDD projects that protect these ecosystems.
The new REDD Methodology
The new methodology has been developed to help ensure the integrity of greenhouse gas accounting for individual projects within a jurisdiction. To achieve this, it uses the latest science, data, and technologies and will see:
- Baselines set using jurisdictional-level data that meets stringent requirements and a robust development process.
- Remote sensing technology used to help determine the expected deforestation rate for a project area, allowing the number of verified emission reductions from all projects in a jurisdiction to be consistent with jurisdictional-scale accounting.
- Greater collaboration with national governments, enabling project baselines to be derived from jurisdictional REDD baselines and enhancing efforts to achieve national climate action targets outlined in the Paris Agreement.
- The baseline reassessment period reduced from ten years to six in all Verra methodologies that address avoiding unplanned deforestation.
Development of the REDD methodology
REDD was first discussed during COP11 in 2005 at the request of Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea, on behalf of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, when they submitted the document “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries: Approaches to Stimulate Action”. After two years of debate the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed to explore ways of reducing emissions from deforestation and to enhance forest carbon stocks in developing nations. The UNFCCC later created REDD+ which expanded the scope of the program to include increasing forest cover through both reforestation and the planting of new forest cover, as well as promoting sustainable forest resources management. By COP13 in December 2007, the first substantial decision on REDD+ was adopted.
REDD Projects
Viridios has invested in a range of REDD+ projects around the world. If you would like to learn more about REDD+ or would like to purchase carbon credits generated from our projects, contact our Corporate Solutions team.