REDD+ is separated into three phases:

1. Preparation; where countries must develop a national REDD+ strategy, a Forest Reference Emissions Level (FREL) that will serve as baseline to measure results against, a forest monitoring system and a system to gather and report information on how REDD+ safeguards are being addressed and respected.   Please see the Ambition page ‘Baselines and Reference Levels’ for more detailed information about FRELs.
2. Implementation; of policies, measures and reforms to reduce emissions.
3. Results; Measurement and verification of results, possible payments for results.

Information from each country regarding REDD+ is available through the REDD+ Web Platform.

The UN-REDD Programme supports countries in phase 1 and 2. A list of countries participating and their information is available here.

A list of countries in phase 3, and all required information submitted by them, is available at the REDD+ info hub.

REDD+ has a set of safeguards, often called the Cancun Safeguards, adopted at COP16, which took place in Cancun Mexico, that apply to the planning and implementation of REDD+. Key amongst these safeguards are requirements to respect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), and to ensure the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders, like IPLCs, in the development and implementation of REDD+.

Countries are also required to provide a summary of information on how the safeguards are being addressed and respected when reporting on their REDD+ implementation and results, in order to be eligible to receive payments for results. Unfortunately, many countries have been slow to develop a proper system to gather information regarding how safeguards are being respected, with little or no input from non-state actors. As a result, the submitted summary of information has been too general and not reflecting the reality of REDD+ implementation on the ground. These summaries of information has also not faced enough scrutiny before payments for results have been dispersed.

  Important questions to ask while analysing the REDD+ national strategy:

• Does it contain specific measures to end deforestation and forest degradation, by an acceptable date, and are these measures credible and/or desirable? Does it contain measures to protect natural forests from further degradation and fragmentation?
• Does it contain plans for forest restoration? If so, is it specifically restoring natural forest, or is it planting of monoculture plantations? Does it make sure that restoration won’t be used to “net out” continued deforestation?
• Does it analyse and address the drivers of deforestation? Is it the right drivers that have been addressed, and do you believe the measures proposed will be effective?
• Does it properly analyse and address land tenure issues? Does it contain an acceptable plan for how REDD+ benefits, including payments for emission reductions, will be shared amongst stakeholders, and in particular, indigenous peoples and local communities?
• Does it properly analyse and address the rights situation in the country, especially regarding land issues? Will the strategy improve or worsen the rights situation?  (See the Ambition page on ‘Land Rights’ for more detailed analysis.
• Does it propose sufficient and credible measures to improve forest governance?  Does it address issues of forest crime, corruption, transparency and efficiency?  Does it specify new enforcement powers, and co-management strategies with indigenous peoples and local communities?
• Does it properly address the REDD+ safeguards, especially regarding the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders, like indigenous peoples and local communities?

Publications:

As part of the REDD+ framework, developing countries are promised support from developed countries, both technical and financial. Though financial support exists for both preparation and implementation purposes (phase 1 and 2), most of the financial support in REDD+ has been anticipated to come in the form of payments for results, i.e. emissions reductions that have been measured and verified. Most of those payments are expected to come from carbon markets.  So far, there have been very few ‘results based payments’ made to countries through carbon-market mechanisms.

The fact that REDD+ has been designed as a results-based, market-compatible mechanism, where the only results that really matter are measured emissions reductions, has made it controversial amongst civil society. One reason is that it has meant that a lot of the attention and resources goes towards developing expensive monitoring systems, and relatively less at addressing the root causes of deforestation and land rights violations.  Another is that connecting REDD+ results to carbon markets allows for offsetting of permanent fossil fuel emissions against non-permanent emission reductions from deforestation, through REDD+. CLARA has taken a very strong position against offsetting. 

REDD+ as it is described here is often referred to as “jurisdictional REDD+”, meaning that it is implemented by a national or sub-national jurisdiction (state, province, regency, etc.). REDD+ is also used as a label by many projects, implemented by NGOs or private actors.  REDD+ projects usually focus on reducing deforestation and the resulting GHG emissions, in a smaller, project-specific area. Such projects have faced a lot of criticism for failures to respect land rights of local communities, and because such projects have no way of preventing leakage of emissions (i.e. deforestation activities moving to another location). They have also been criticized for selling emission reductions, that don’t represent real and permanent emissions reductions, to voluntary carbon markets allowing fossil fuel emission to be “offset” – though in reality no such offsetting has taken place.

Leakage in this context refers to the problem of emissions, or specifically the deforestation or forest degradation, moving from the place where an action is taken to stop it into another area where no such action exists. This a basic problem with REDD+, both jurisdictional and project based, as long as it doesn’t address the large-scale drivers of deforestation at a global level: agricultural expansion driven by overconsumption of meat, dairy and other agricultural products, and an unsustainable industrial agricultural business model.

Though REDD+ has failed to address this, the problem with leakage is generally bigger the smaller the scale of the REDD+ implementation area is.

It is a requirement of the Paris Agreement that rich countries should support efforts by developing countries to eliminate deforestation.  But rich countries shouldn’t be able to ‘help’ developing countries to prevent deforestation, and then take the credit for the resulting emission reductions.  The page ‘Financial Mechanisms’ explores these questions in more detail.