Reducing Emissions from All Land Uses (REALU) - a whole landscape approach to reducing emissions

1. Reducing Emissions from All Land Uses (REALU) - a whole landscape approach to reducing emissions Florence Bernard, Peter Minang, Meine van Noordwijk, Elizabeth Kahurani (ASB Partnership, Nairobi, Kenya; f.bernard@cgiar.org) Why REALU? Figure 1. Emissions captured and part of land cover change matrix included in the accounts under different REDD scenarios REALU looks beyond REDD+ to a possible and fair inclusion of all transitions in land cover (trees outside forest, agroforestry systems and community-based forest management) that can achieve carbon storage and emissions avoided. • REALU recognizes REDD+ but tries to address • the challenges of REDD+ as follows: • The absence of a globally agreed definition of ‘Forest’ will impede implementation of REDD or REDD+ • Drivers of deforestation are largely outside the forests and are not addressed within REDD+ • Current REDD+ construction ignores high potential emissions reduction and sequestration in other land use • REDD+ as just a partial accounting of land use is challenged by cross-scale issues such as additionality, leakage, and permanence RED = Reducing emissions from (gross) deforestation: only changes from ‘forest’ to ‘non-forest’ land cover types are included, and details very much depend on the operational definition of ‘forest’ How different is REALU from REDD+? Figure 2. The four pillars that support a whole-landscape agenda for carbon management • REALU towards the ultimate goal of adaptative sustainable livelihoods and climate resilience • The REALU architecture consists of four pillars addressing • specific land uses and sectors: • Reducing forest-based emissions (REDD) • Reducing emissions from peat (REPeat) • Restocking land through trees and soil carbon (REStock) • Reducing emissions from agricultural greenhouse gasses (REAGG) • Emission reduction outside of Annex-I countries needs to be • based on principles or foundation stones: • National sovereignty within differentiated global responsibility. • Respect of rights of indigenous people and rules for free and prior informed consent. • Integrity of global accounting systems. REDD = idem, + (forest) degradation, or the shifts to lower C-stock densities within the forest; details very much depend on the operational definition of ‘forest’ REDD+ = idem, + restocking within and towards ‘forest’ ; in some versions RED+ will also include peatlands, regardless of their forest status ; details still depend on the operational definition of ‘forest’ REDD++ = REALU = idem, + all transitions in land cover that affect C storage, whether peatland or mineral soil, trees-outside-forest, agroforest, plantations or natural forest. It does not depend on the operational definition of ‘forest’ Linking REALU and NAMAs: example of Indonesia ’s emission reduction efforts • NAMAs combine a set of actions necessary to facilitate the transition to low-carbon growth for different sectors of the economy, including agriculture and forestry. With NAMA, all land uses qualify for emission reduction, regardless of forest definition. • Indonesia hopes that combining NAMA with international co-investment, it can achieve a further emission reduction of 15% (in addition to its 2020 emission reduction goal by 26% without reliance on foreign co-investment). • REALU is land-based NAMAs as it considers Emissions from all land uses, therefore it is a first step at NAMAs from a land use sense.