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Cited by 372Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource ManagementForest Management and PolicyClimate Change Policy and Economics

Overstated carbon emission reductions from voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon

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West, Thales A. P., Börner, Jan, Sills, Erin O., Kontoleon, Andreas·2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.2004334117PMC PMC7533833
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Abstract

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) has gained international attention over the past decade, as manifested in both United Nations policy discussions and hundreds of voluntary projects launched to earn carbon-offset credits. There are ongoing discussions about whether and how projects should be integrated into national climate change mitigation efforts under the Paris Agreement. One consideration is whether these projects have generated additional impacts over and above national policies and other measures. To help inform these discussions, we compare the crediting baselines established ex-ante by voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon to counterfactuals constructed ex-post based on the quasi-experimental synthetic control method. We find that the crediting baselines assume consistently higher deforestation than counterfactual forest loss in synthetic control sites. This gap is partially due to decreased deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the early implementation phase of the REDD+ projects considered here. This suggests that forest carbon finance must strike a balance between controlling conservation investment risk and ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon emission offsets. Relatedly, our results point to the need to better align project- and national-level carbon accounting.

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  • A regional REDD+ project in a previously blacklisted municipality in Mato Grosso did not find any significant additional effect as deforestation rates were already lowered by the government blacklisting policy as part of PPCDAm.

    “Similarly, a regional REDD+ project in a previously blacklisted (i.e., cut off from 504 agricultural credit) municipality in Mato Grosso did not find any significant additional effect as 505 deforestation rates were already lowered by the government blacklisting policy as part of PPCDAm 506 (explained below) [138].”

    From A systematic comparison of deforestation drivers and policy effectiveness across the Amazon biome (2023) · cites this paper as [138]

    The Results (page unavailable) find no significant overall evidence that the studied REDD+ projects reduced forest loss beyond background reductions in the Brazilian Amazon. But the paper does not identify a project in a blacklisted Mato Grosso municipality or attribute its lack of additional effect to blacklisting, agricultural-credit restrictions, or PPCDAm. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. [3]J. Börner et al ., ' National and subnational forest conservation policies -What works, what doesn ' t ' in Transforming REDD+: Lessons and New Directions , A. Angelsen, Ed. (Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, 2018), pp. 105 -116.
  2. [6]D. Lee, P. Llopis, R. Waterworth, G. Roberts, T. Pearson, ' Approaches to REDD+ nesting: Lessons learned from country experiences ' (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018).
  3. [23]A. A. Azevedo et al ., Limits of Brazil ' s Forest Code as a means to end illegal deforestation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 114 , 7653 -7658 (2017).
  4. [33]E. O. Sills, K. Jones, ' Causal inference in environmental conservation: The role of institutions ' in Handbook of Environmental Economics , K.-G. Maler, J. R. Vincent, Eds. (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2018), pp. 395 -437.
  5. [37]G. Simonet et al ., ' Forests and carbon: The impacts of local REDD+ initiatives ' in Transforming REDD+: Lessons and New Directions , A. Angelsen, Ed. et al . (Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, 2018), pp. 117 -130.
  6. [38]A. E. Duchelle, C. De Sassi, E. O. Sills, S. Wunder, ' People and communities ' in Transforming REDD+: Lessons And New Directions , A. Angelsen, Ed. et al . (Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, 2018), pp. 131 -141.
  7. [42]G. P. Asner et al ., High-resolution forest carbon stocks and emissions in the Amazon. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107 , 16738 -16742 (2010).
  8. [44]A. Roopsind, B. Sohngen, J. Brandt, Evidence that a national REDD+ program reduces tree cover loss and carbon emissions in a high forest cover, low deforestation country. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116 , 24492 -24499 (2019).

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Authors
West, T. A. P., Börner, J., Sills, E. O., & Kontoleon, A.
Affiliations
  • University of Bonn (DE)
  • North Carolina State University (US)
  • University of Cambridge (GB)
Corresponding author
West, Thales A. P.
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2020-09-14
Volume
117
Issue
39
Pages
24188-24194
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.2004334117
PMC
PMC7533833
OpenAlex
W3087017120
Cited by
372
References
3
Citations by year
2026: 71 · 2025: 73 · 2024: 87 · 2023: 76 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 2 · 2017: 1
FWCI
13.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.pnas.org/site/aboutpnas/licenses.xhtml (vor, 181 d)
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion)
  • Apollo
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Forest Management and Policy
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
Keywords
REDD+, deforestation, synthetic control method, forest carbon finance, Brazilian Amazon, Paris Agreement, carbon accounting
MeSH terms
Greenhouse Gases, Brazil, Carbon, Conservation of Natural Resources, Climate Change, Forests

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