Quick Stop on Durban COP-December 6

EKO ECO Guest Blogger on December 6, 2011 Comment

LULUCF: Expect a text tomorrow - when it's in, also expect to hear observer responses to the big issues: will the text opt for projected or historical baselines? Will accounting be consistent with other sectors under the Kyoto Protocol (several organizations say Option 3 - out of four available options - is the only one that passes this test).

All of this depends, of course, on the presence of a Kyoto successor - and parties comment that there's no obvious choice emerging among the existing proposals. Members of the French delegation and others report to Ecosystem Marketplace that right now it seems unlikely that a "gap" solution can be agreed upon in Durban that would prevent Kyoto from expiring without a replacement.

Members of the AWG-KP are currently reviewing provisional fixes in case there's no timely comprehensive solution.

REDD: For REDD to work, the market needs clear guidance on how to establish reference levels, but the UN text is often incomprehensible to those outside the process -- and even to those of us who are tangential to it, not to mention negotiators themselves. That's why the Meridian Institute published "2011 Guidelines for REDD+ Reference Levels: Principles and Recommendations" in November. On Monday, they held a side event to shed light on the debate over reference levels and on the decisions we highlighted in yesterday's blog.

Commissioned by the Norwegian government, the report is part of a collection of reports that is meant to "support and inform UNFCCC negotiators and other stakeholders in the process of building an international REDD+ mechanism," according to Hans Brattskar, the Ambassador of Norway's Climate and Forest Initiative.

It certainly seemed to, from the author's comments as well as Tony La Viña's assessment. "I think the report and its previous earlier versions contributed to unpack all of this for the negotiators such that by the time we were actually in Durban, many of the negotiators had actually mastered or knew how to talk about this," says Levina, the facilitator of the SBSTA REDD+ Contact group, referring to the technical issues of reference levels.

The report was developed by expert authors that the Meridian Institute convened; these authors then went through a consultation process with other experts. As the project leader Dan Zarin said in the side event, these reports were meant to aid SBSTA in responding to the request embedded in Annex 2 of the Cancun agreements to develop modalities for REDD+ reference levels and reference emission levels at COP17.

However, as Zarin quickly pointed out, there is no official definition of reference level or reference emission level in an adopted UNFCCC text. For the report, reference emission level refers to levels of deforestation and degradation whereas the term reference level refers to these as well as sustainable management of forests, conservation and enhancement of carbon stocks.

There were many similarities between the decision and the report;s ideas on reference levels. For example, Doug Boucher said that both documents use the same basic definition for REDD+ Reference Levels: they are business as usual baselines, developed using historic data and adjusted for national circumstances, against which emissions are compared.

To develop these reference levels, the report recommended that SBSTA take a cue from IPCC and use their basic reporting principles. SBSTA listened, and included 4 out of 5: transparency, completeness, consistency and accuracy. Though they left out comparability, it was not for lack of discussion says Boucher.

La Viña seconded that, saying that a longer discussion was needed around that issue in the next SBSTA meeting.

One area that remains open for interpretation is the decision's recommendation on the scope of REDD+ Reference Levels. The report recommended that SBSTA use IPCC's basic categories of land use transitions: Conversion of forests to other lands; Emissions from and removals by forests remaining as forests and other lands that are converted to forests. However, Boucher says the negotiations did not clarify whether these would be used as the different categories for reference levels.

Boucher thinks that SBSTA should agree to use these IPCC categories because they are simple and straight-forward. In addition, the IPCC has extensive guidance on how to estimate emissions and removals for these categories, he says.

Beyond recommendations, the report also included guidelines for how governments should develop reference levels. Both the SBSTA decision and the report emphasized that definitions were a key step for developing reference levels. These would include, according to Sandra Brown, what percentage of canopy cover is considered a forest, the scope of activities and the pools included, the time frame for historic levels, and whether it will initially be within a national or subnational scope.

Within the SBSTA decision, it is clear that countries need to have clear definitions of pools including explanations for pools they were excluding. However, the time frame for historic levels was not mentioned.

Definitions are especially important because many countries transitioning to a national REDD+ system will have to integrate various sub-national strategies. This means, as Valerie Merckx pointed out, these sub-national strategies must follow the same steps as reference levels at the national level.

Regardless of what type of reference level they are creating, Brown thinks that countries should determine the type of data needed and then look to see if any existing data can be used - rather than simply trying to harmonize that existing data to create a reference level. Though countries might be skeptical of this approach, Brown thinks it will help for the future. "Eventually you are going to have to collect this kind of data as you move forward under a monitoring plan, therefore why not learn by doing it on the historical period?," says Brown. "This is an opportunity to actually develop the capacity while you are learning how to do it."

Another key part of reference level discussion is the need for adjusting according to national circumstances. "We concluded that case-by-case adjustments should be supported by robust and verifiable empirical data," says Brown. "Basically if you look at the SBSTA decision, that is basically what it is more or less suggesting. It is done on a country by country basis where they have to make the case for what their adjustments would be--they have to be credible, they have to be justifiable and they have to be transparent."

The adoption of a reference level and any adjustments will be approved through an outside technical assessment. The report and the SBSTA decision are in agreement that the procedure for reference levels adoption is that countries will submit preliminary reference levels and issues will be discussed after a preliminary review, according to Merckx.

There is still plenty in the report that SBSTA will need to talk about at their next meeting.

For example, Merckx says that there will be a need to focus on the criteria of the technical assessment.

Though he sees the hook for later discussion, Boucher also sees the need for SBSTA to continue to work on how the technical assessment is going to work: who will do it? What information will they consider? How will it be reported? To whom? And what happens next?