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SUMMARY:Establishing baseline emissions rates for REDD+ - Beccy Wilebore
DTSTART:20110727T150000Z
DTEND:20110727T153000Z
UID:TALK31888@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Suzy Stoodley
DESCRIPTION:Tropical forests store the most carbon per hectare of any land
  cover on earth. When forests are degraded or converted\, carbon that was 
 previously stored in forest biomass and soils is decomposed and released t
 o the atmosphere\, contributing an estimated 15% of anthropogenic greenhou
 se gas emissions globally. For over a decade a financial incentive scheme 
 for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD plu
 s) has been under development\, and gathering momentum under the United Na
 tions Framework Convention on Climate Change. Investors in carbon credits 
 generated from REDD plus to offset carbon emissions will seek assurances t
 hat emissions reductions are genuine\, requiring the development of robust
  and transparent monitoring systems to evaluate the effectiveness of REDD 
 plus interventions. Emissions reductions will be calculated by comparing a
 ctual emissions during an implementation period with the predicted emissio
 ns\, based on models of how much carbon would have been emitted under a bu
 siness-as-usual scenario. However one of the greatest criticisms of the sc
 ientific community working on REDD plus is the inability to predict these 
 future emissions with accuracy and reliability. Using data from a well stu
 died site in Sierra Leone I will assess different approaches to predicting
  future emissions at the project scale\, and secondly examine how lessons 
 learned from small REDD plus projects such as this can be used to scale up
  activities to the national level. 
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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