Guidelines for REDD+ Reference Levels: Principles and Recommendations

Meridian Institute will deliver the Government of Norway-supported Guidelines for REDD+ Reference Levels report at the seventeenth session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP-17) in Durban, South Africa.
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Deforestation accounts for about 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions—larger than the entire global transportation sector. The Government of Norway has made the inclusion of a mechanism for REDD+ in a post-2012 climate regime a policy priority in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. To achieve this, sufficient fact-based analysis of options on how to effectively reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (and the role of conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks) and impacts of an agreed mechanism will be crucial. The Guidelines for REDD+ Reference Levels: Principles and Recommendations report and the preceding report, Modalities for REDD+ Reference Levels: Technical and Procedural Issues, both of which can be downloaded from this site are two important contributions in that regard.

Meridian Institute, a nonprofit NGO internationally recognized for convening and facilitating neutral and independent dialogues and assessments, facilitated this process. Meridian recently assembled a high-quality, diverse, and independent group of experts to provide pragmatic, fact-based analysis of technical and procedural issues, associated with reference level modalities as well as guidelines for the preparation of reference levels under the UNFCCC framework.

The Guidelines for REDD+ Reference Levels: Principles and Recommendations report identifies principles that should be adhered to, the steps that must be taken, the data that will be required, and shows how the data can be analyzed to produce scientifically credible estimates of historic GHG emissions and removals from forests, which can then be used to project reference levels. This analysis is undertaken to inform the Government of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative and other key stakeholders and government negotiators in the run up to COP-17.

There have been electronic and in person consultations as part of this ef fort—with governments, civil society, indigenous peoples’ representatives, and other key stakeholders—to ensure that diverse perspectives are considered. However, the intent of this process has not been to reach or form consensus, but rather to provide an analysis to help inform governments, and other key stakeholders on these important issues.

For more information, please contact: Michael Lesnick at REDD-OAR@merid.org.

The correct citation for this report is:
Meridian Institute. 2011. “Guidelines for REDD+ Reference Levels: Principles and Recommendations.” Prepared for the Government of Norway, by Arild Angelsen, Doug Boucher, Sandra Brown, Valérie Merckx, Charlotte Streck, and Daniel Zarin. Available at: http://www.REDD-OAR.org.

ISBN: 978-0-615-56023-6