3 results
13 - Case study 2: monitoring requirements for reforestation and improved forest management projects across standards
- from Part III - MRV at offset project scale
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- By Mariana Deheza, CDC Climat
- Edited by Valentin Bellassen, Nicolas Stephan
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- Book:
- Accounting for Carbon
- Published online:
- 05 March 2015
- Print publication:
- 19 March 2015, pp 423-466
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Summary
Context
On the voluntary carbon market, 26% of all the carbon credits that were exchanged in 2012 came from forestry projects, with 9% from projects reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and 17% from reforestation and improved forest management (IFM) projects (Peters-Stanley et al., 2013). REDD projects, which take a territorial approach to MRV, are treated in a specific case study of part I variant 2 (see Chapter 4). This case study focuses on the MRV procedures and their associated uncertainty for forestry projects across two certification standards: the CDM and the VCS. These two standards were chosen because they are the two most used among certification standards for forestry projects (Peters-Stanley and Hamilton 2012). In 2011, 60% of all transacted forestry credits in both the voluntary and the compliance market were certified by the CDM or the VCS.
The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) is one of the most widely used standards in the voluntary market, with 55 percent of transacted credits (56 MtCO2e) according to Peters-Stanley et al. (2013). This standard was founded by The Climate Group, International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), The World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in 2005.
As of May 2013, 1,005 projects have been registered under this standard and issued more than 120 million verified carbon units (VCU). Within those, 73 are forestry projects, with an estimated capacity of generating 27 MVCUs per year. VCS also constitutes the most popular standard for forestry projects, with 28 percent of all forestry projects transacted worldwide (Peters-Stanley and Hamilton 2012).
Any methodology accepted by the CDM can be used in the VCS. Protocols –or methodologies –developed by the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) are also accepted, except for the CAR forest protocol. No VCS-specific AR methodology has been developed as project proponents opted to use the CDM methodologies. Together, the CDM and the VCS have validated nine reforestation or IFM methodologies (Table 13.1).
15 - Synthesis
- from Part III - MRV at offset project scale
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- By Valentin Bellassen, Institut National pour la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Nicolas Stephan, CDC Climat, Marion Afriat, CDC Climat, Emilie Alberola, CDC Climat, Alexandra Barker, NPL, Jean-Pierre Chang, UNFCCC, Caspar Chiquet, MRV practice of South Pole Carbon, Ian Cochran, CDC Climat, Mariana Deheza, CDC Climat, Chris Dimopoulos, NPL, Claudine Foucherot, CDC Climat, Guillaume Jacquier, CITEPA, Romain Morel, CDC Climat, Roderick Robinson, NPL, Igor Shishlov, CDC Climat
- Edited by Valentin Bellassen, Nicolas Stephan
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- Book:
- Accounting for Carbon
- Published online:
- 05 March 2015
- Print publication:
- 19 March 2015, pp 510-537
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Summary
This chapter brings together all the previous ones. Based on the detailed presentation and analysis of the MRV requirements of so many different carbon pricing and management mechanisms – hereafter “carbon pricing mechanisms,” it synthesizes and compares how they answered to the five cross-cutting questions identified in the general introduction to the book:
• What are the MRV requirements?
• What are the costs for entities to meet these requirements?
• Is a flexible trade-off between requirements and costs allowed?
• Is requirements stringency adapted to the amount of emissions at stake (materiality)?
• What is the balance between comparability and information relevance?
MRV requirements across schemes
The first cross-cutting question – what are the MRV requirements? – is too large to be answered in a synthetic way. This section thus focuses on two components of this question that have a major impact on MRV costs: requirements pertaining to third-party verification and those pertaining to monitoring uncertainty.
Verification requirements are broadly similar across the board
Most carbon pricing mechanisms impose a verification of the reports by an independent third party. Verification requirements are broadly similar across carbon pricing mechanisms:
• the third party must be accredited by a regulator for GHG emissions audits and this accreditation tends to be sector-specific;
• the third party must assess whether the methods used and the reporting format comply with the relevant guidelines;
• the third party must assess the accuracy, i.e., the absence of bias, of the reported figures;
• the regulator is allowed to question the opinion of the auditor, but seldom does so;• the third party tends to be paid directly by the verified entity. Although this creates a potential conflict of interest, the risk of losing the accreditation is a much stronger incentive and keeps auditors from being complacent with their client (Cormier and Bellassen, 2013).
4 - Variant 2: sectoral MRV at the jurisdictional level–forestry (REDD+) in the VCS and the UNFCCC
- from Part I - MRV of territorial/jurisdictional emissions
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- By Mariana Deheza, CDC Climat, Valentin Bellassen, Institut National pour la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)
- Edited by Valentin Bellassen, Nicolas Stephan
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- Book:
- Accounting for Carbon
- Published online:
- 05 March 2015
- Print publication:
- 19 March 2015, pp 104-136
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Summary
Context
Ever since avoided deforestation came back on the agenda of international climate negotiations in Montreal in 2005, there has been a forefeeling that only a large-scale approach, national or jurisdictional, would eventually be acceptable. This was confirmed by the 16th Conference of the Parties in 2010 (Decision 1/CP.16), and this is the approach that the World Bank has been pursuing with its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). Accordingly, the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) – the leading standard for REDD+ (Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Forests and the role of conservation, sustainable management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks) projects in 2012 – has been trying to upscale its project-scale approach over the last couple of years. This resulted in the Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ (JNR) Framework which undertook public consultation in 2012 and was officially released in 2013.
The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) is one of the most widely used standards in the voluntary market, with 55 percent of transacted credits (56 MtCO2e) according to Peters-Stanley et al. (2013). So far, however, all these credits have been coming from individual projects, including those that allow for the REDD+. As of October 1st, 2013, the JNR was still too recent and the first programs and credits to pass it had still to materialize. Yet, eight pilot programs (at the national and regional level) using these requirements were being developed. Five of these pilot programs are funded by a US$1.4 million grant from the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) given to the VCS over a three-year period (2013–2015) to develop and pilot integrated JNR accounting and verification frameworks.
As such, it was at that time the most operational MRV framework for jurisdictional REDD+, and to our knowledge, the most advanced sectoral MRV framework. This is why it has been chosen as a “variant” from national greenhouse gas inventories for MRV at territorial scale in this chapter.