DIRECTORY ENTRY: Coalition for Rainforest Nations

According to the current status of the climate negotiations under the UNFCCC, REDD+ should be included in a mechanism that enables the mobilization of financial resources from developed countries to developing countries for mitigation actions in line with their national capacity and capability.

In order to reach this goal, the REDD+ mechanism will require a common approach to monitoring, reporting and verifying results to ensure comparability in measured outcomes of different actions and/or different countries. Such MRV requirements for REDD+ have not been negotiated and specified yet, however national GHG inventories are the foundation for identifying key data gaps, improving collection of relevant data and evaluating GHG mitigation strategies and their outcomes. More specific MRV guidelines or requirements could be layered on top of the GHG inventory, but preparation of robust GHG inventories is a basic capacity all countries need as they move towards being able to participate in any eventual MRV approach.  In addition, the Copenhagen Accord, to which many countries have associated, lays out regular national GHG inventories as a fundamental task for all countries because it helps guide low GHG emissions development.

Under the UNFCCC the National System has the role to monitor and report, by means of the National GHG Inventory, levels and trends of GHG emissions and removals; verification is then ensured by means of independent review. In this way quality of estimates provided by countries in the inventory submissions and therefore their comparability is ensured.

The UNFCCC system is based on UNFCCC and IPCC Guidelines which allow each country to build a National System according to its national circumstances with the aim to have the most accurate National GHG Inventory according to available technical and financial capacities and capabilities. The IPCC Guidelines help countries produce GHG estimates which are consistent with the UNFCCC reporting principles. The Guidelines set a default methodology and provide a default set of factor and inputs to the equation, which, in combination with activity data provided by the country, allow each country to monitor and report its GHG fluxes; moreover they provide guidance on how to identify the most relevant (key) categories and most uncertain estimates on which to focus efforts for improving the quality of the National GHG Inventory.

Consequently, the UNFCCC system is based on a learning by doing philosophy; it provides the tools and necessary guidance on collecting activity data to achieve a minimum quality level (i.e. tier 1) inventory and an instrument to guide a progressive and continuous process of improvement of the monitoring system, as applied methodologies and collected data, and reported estimates. Because countries can develop their own country-specific methodologies, the high degree of variability and change over space and time among countries are taken into account (including available technical skills, level of science, availability of funds and other constraints due to national circumstances). It also allows countries to plan improvements over the years and apply better methods and approaches in each inventory, starting a virtuous routine.

To ensure a prompt start and a full integration of the REDD+ mechanism in the international efforts for mitigating and adapting to Climate Change, developing countries should also gain experience in the UNFCCC system. Furthermore, although the REDD+ is currently defined as including only the forest sector, a National GHG Inventory should, over time, be able to include all anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks occurring on the whole national managed land area in order to account for displacement of emissions