Environmental Defense Fund, Princeton publish research on large-scale carbon reduction

Published on August 17, 2021 by Dave Kovaleski


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Researchers at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Princeton University recently completed a study to show how large-scale emissions reductions policies and programs can drive lasting reductions in carbon dioxide.

Among the key findings, the research showed that implementing an emissions reduction strategy over a larger political jurisdiction – at the state, country, or regional level – ensured greater assurance of longevity through systemic changes. Further, they found that large, jurisdictional-scale tropical forest credits provide a model for other sectors. Specifically, an article they published in Environmental Research Letters looks at how Brazil’s reductions in Amazon deforestation from 2004 to 2012 have kept as much as 5.38 gigatons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere – even though efforts to undo environmental regulations have been mounting since 2012. Brazil achieved those reductions through large, jurisdictional-scale efforts to reduce deforestation.

“We know living forests are the best technology for getting and keeping carbon out of the atmosphere,” EDF Senior Director for Tropical Forests and lead author Stephan Schwartzman said. “We also know that natural climate solutions are urgently needed to keep warming under 2 degrees Celsius. Now we can see that the scale of actions and policies is critical to ensure that these and other climate solutions are real and lasting.”

The authors of the report made several recommendations for decision-makers in public and private sectors to achieve greater carbon reduction. They call for a transition to large-scale crediting strategies in both regulated and voluntary carbon markets and across terrestrial and fossil sources. Further, they recommend providing purchase commitments, price guarantees, and complementary finance and capacity development to support the implementation of jurisdictional (and nested) emissions reductions across all sectors.

“Achieving large-scale and long-lived emissions reductions while meeting underlying economic demand, as Brazil did in the Amazon, requires systemic changes,” EDF Chief Natural Resource Economist and coauthor Ruben Lubowski said. “The debate over the effectiveness of carbon credits has largely ignored the issue of scale as a determinant of quality and systemic change. Ramping up accounting and implementation of climate strategies over large, political jurisdictions – at the country or state level – provides greater assurance that estimated emissions reductions are real and durable. Scale matters not just for tropical forests, where jurisdictional standards exist and have been recognized by the Paris Agreement and major compliance markets, but across other sectors as well.”

A new public-private initiative called LEAF (Lowering Emissions through Accelerated Forest Finance) Coalition seeks to implement these large-scale approaches. Donor governments, along with 10 major corporations, are raising more than $1 billion by the end of this year to halt deforestation in tropical states and countries. More than 30 jurisdictions have answered LEAF’s call for proposals and seek to reduce their deforestation in exchange for compensation for results demonstrated at a large scale.