REDD+ But Not Ready

Why the Nationally Determined Contributions of Developing Countries Are Unprepared for REDD+ to be Adopted Under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement

Résumé

The ratification of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement allows countries to engage in compliance-based carbon markets which will allow countries to offset their own carbon emissions by investing in emissions reductions elsewhere. Given this recent development, it bears considering whether the international system is prepared to adopt existing voluntary carbon markets into a compliance system. Accordingly, this paper examines the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of major REDD+ host countries to determine whether they are prepared to adopt this program under the compliance-based system. Given the well-documented risks of carbon offset markets to indirectly increase emission (via non-additionality, leakage, or incentivizing weak governance from host states), this paper argues that host states need to set clear guidelines towards the roles internal decarbonization policy and what is additional contributions from carbon markets. This paper ultimately argues that REDD+ is ill-equipped to function under a carbon market as host states appear reliant on REDD+ to achieve their own internal climate goals and suggests that better accountability is needed for REDD+ to be adopted under article 6.