Venue: Florencia (Caquetá), Colombia

Background

For more than a decade, countries that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been working to build positive policies and incentives to reduce emissions associated with deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). The REDD+ performance-based mitigation approach seeks to incentivise the reduction of emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation, as well as to promote carbon sequestration and sound forest management.

The degradation of forests implies a reduction of their capacity as a carbon sink, as well as affecting their goods and other important ecosystem services such as water, soil and biodiversity conservation.  Reducing emissions from forest degradation is an important umbrella for maintaining healthy forest ecosystems and their productive capacities.  For this reason, several international offset mechanisms require both emissions reductions from deforestation and forest degradation.

In recent years, numerous studies have been carried out to assess deforestation and forest degradation, especially in tropical forests, following the guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Deforestation monitoring has successfully overcome many of the technical and technological challenges, but forest degradation monitoring is still difficult to define, quantify and report.  This situation limits the options for countries to obtain greater offsets for forest-related emission reductions, because several international standards consider it mandatory, such as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF-FC), the Transaction Architecture for REDD+ (ART) International Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES) or the VERRA Carbon Verification Standard.

Under this brief context, and in the framework of the UN-REDD Programme with the technical support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia will develop from 14 to 17 November 2023, the "Regional workshop for capacity building and exchange of experiences on estimation of forest degradation", which will bring together experts from Latin America involved in forest degradation generation and will seek to open spaces for South-South collaboration.

General objective

To present and discuss the tools and methodologies for reporting forest degradation emissions implemented in the participating countries.

Specific objectives

- Strengthen the capacities of Latin American countries in the definition of concepts and methodologies for the estimation of forest degradation.

- Identify the most important challenges for monitoring forest degradation and propose solutions.

- Promote South-South exchanges between experts in the region on forest degradation monitoring.

Participants

Delegates from the countries of Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Honduras, Costa Rica and Argentina.

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This meeting, coordinated by the UN-REDD Programme, will be held in Panama City on 24-25 October 2023 on financing for forests and climate change with environmental and social integrity and will have spaces focused on nesting and safeguards.

The event offers a unique opportunity for the exchange of knowledge, experiences, collaboration and dynamic debates between experts and practitioners working on protection, reforestation and sustainable use of forests.

Context:

In recent years, several countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, with the support of the UN-REDD Programme and other initiatives, have concluded the REDD+ readiness phase, so that several countries are currently planning and implementing their REDD+ strategies or action plans, under various approaches, according to different funding sources and at different scales, from individual projects to programmes at subnational and national scales, all of these with their own requirements and characteristics according to donor policies, standards and other applicable rules.

In this process, countries are beginning to face new challenges to ensure the environmental and social integrity of REDD+, considering the following elements, among others:

• Avoid double counting, through the use of comprehensive carbon accounting systems, aligned baselines and reporting, and complete registries;
• Implement equitable benefit-sharing systems and schemes;
• Clarify legal aspects related to carbon rights, land tenure and policy frameworks, among others
• Apply safeguards with approaches and systems at different scales, appropriate stakeholder participation, with recognition of the centrality and key role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

These considerations also arise in response to the various demands coming from the demand side of forest carbon, market trends, financial institutions and donor country conditions, among other factors. If countries fail to address these challenges satisfactorily, the continuity of their financial flows to fund REDD+ outcomes could be at risk.

To address these challenges comprehensively, nesting schemes are being designed and implemented, understood as a strategic approach to integrating the different levels of REDD+ implementation (national, subnational, programmes and projects), together with the various financing schemes (results-based payments, carbon markets or other), and facilitating alignment and coherence between the different mechanisms and systems for carbon accounting (registries, reference levels, etc.) and safeguards of the different levels.

Thus, while such a nesting scheme poses significant challenges for states (national and sub-national), once implemented it would allow the entire jurisdictional REDD+ scheme to have an adequate ecosystem to ensure environmental and social integrity of REDD+ in its different aspects and at different levels, thus resulting in better opportunities to access limited climate finance.

This workshop proposes to assess the current situation in the countries of the region and the international context to establish how to achieve the enabling conditions needed to develop adequate and comprehensive integrated nesting schemes to ensure environmental and social integrity, and to contribute to the scalability and sustainability of REDD+ finance in the different jurisdictions.

During the workshop there will be expert presentations on financing, environmental and social integrity, nesting, safeguards and other related topics, and there will also be different working groups so that each participant can play an active role, analyse particular cases, appropriate tools and establish relationships with colleagues in the region.

For further information please contact sofia.arocha@un.org Sofia Arocha, Communications and Knowledge Manager for LAC, UNEP, UN-REDD Programme

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The Learning Lab aims to equip technical practitioners in Asia Pacific countries with a comprehensive understanding of various carbon markets, including compliance and voluntary forest carbon markets, along with the underlying standards and principles. Participants will gain insights into the benefits and risks of engaging in carbon markets, accessing results-based finance, and evaluating different forest carbon mechanisms.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Who Can Attend:

1. Government officials working at the national, regional, and local level is interested in learning how carbon markets work, and how to effectively participate in high-integrity forest carbon finance, using examples and lessons learned from other countries.
2. Representatives from community-based organizations, women, youth, and indigenous communities that have rights and interests in forests, forest-based livelihoods, and forest carbon markets
3. Representatives from the private sector, NGOs, intermediaries, project developers and bilateral and multilateral agencies providing financial and technical support for REDD+ initiatives

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CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Register by 30 September 2023.  

If you have any inquiries or require further information, please contact, Ms. Katrina Borromeo, at katrina.borromeo@un.org.