Avoided Land Degradation and Enhanced Soil Carbon Storage: Is There a Role for Carbon Markets? - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 368

The various market-based mechanisms
reviewed by Jindal and Namirembe (2012)
differ in the authority that provides certifi-
cation, the fungibility (or degree to which
land use-related emission reduction can off-
set ongoing fossil energy emissions) and rules
for setting baselines. We will discuss three
groups of market rules.

reduction to be traded in equivalence with
fossil fuel emissions reduction rights.

REDD+, NAMA not yet covered
in binding agreements

The conference of parties of the UNFCCC in
Bali in 2007 opened the door for experi-
ments both with efforts to reduce emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation
(REDD+) and nationally appropriate mitiga-
tion actions (NAMA) in developing countries.
The NAMA provides for comprehensive
emissions reduction across all sectors.
The specific restriction of REDD+ to
'forest' has caused significant complications
in the absence of a globally accepted and
agreed forest definition - with the existing
definition referring to 'forest institutional
frameworks' (including 'temporarily un-
stocked forest'), rather than actual tree cover
(van Noordwijk et al ., 2008). Over the past
5 years, expectations of 'avoided emissions'
in the forest sector have increased, peaked
and crashed with reference to REDD+ (redu-
cing emissions from forest degradation and
deforestation and increased storage by for-
est restoration). Although there is still some
hope that workable rules can be agreed on,
the combination of safeguards that are aimed
at avoiding negative externalities on local
livelihoods, rights and biodiversity has made
'transaction costs' an important part of the
total cost. The initial observation of low
opportunity costs of a large share of histor-
ical emissions (i.e. much of the emissions
has not lead to economically profitable
land use) (Stern, 2006) has not been turned
into implementable abatement programmes
(as abatement costs include opportunity,
transaction plus implementation costs).
One of the challenges to REDD has been that
emissions from peatland, while economically
avoidable, transcend the 'forest definition'
restriction of REDD+, as does the debate on
swiddens (Ziegler et al ., 2012; van Noordwi-
jk et al ., 2015).
More holistic landscape approaches are
needed and have been tried - not limited
yet by narrow definitional issues of agreed
scope. More generally, landscape approaches

Instruments under the Kyoto protocol
and its post-2012 extension

Propositions to include all land-based emis-
sions under the framework of the Clean De-
velopment Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol
were stranded at the negotiation table as
fears that flexible mechanisms would dis-
tract from the need for reducing fossil energy-
based emissions.
Limited opportunities have been cre-
ated for 'assisted restoration' of terrestrial C
stocks based on offset finance (generating
'carbon credits') under the heading of Af-
forestation/Reforestation Clean Develop-
ment Mechanisms (A/R-CDM) (Jindal and
Namirembe, 2012). Stringent safeguards and
rules regulate the application of these mech-
anisms, and so far their implementation has
been far below the allowable part of global
mitigation efforts. The discussion and emer-
gence of operational rules has provided
significant learning opportunities for all in-
volved. However, in the context of continu-
ously increasing net anthropogenic emissions,
the time and mental energy spent might
have had better uses (Murdiyarso et al .,
2008; van Noordwijk et al ., 2008). Jindal
et al . (2008) described 23 projects in 2008,
before the REDD experimentation phase
started.
Meanwhile, the agreed international
accounting procedures for Land Use, Land
Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) or the
updated but yet-to-be adopted protocols on
Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses
(AFOLU) in industrialized countries con-
tinue to be debated, which so far has pre-
vented their inclusion as fungible parts of the
commitment to net emission reduction. The
European carbon market does not yet include
forest, tree or soil carbon-related emission