2020 journal article
Overstated carbon emission reductions from voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(39), 24188–24194.
author keywords: impact evaluation; synthetic control; payment for environmental services; carbon credit; deforestation
MeSH headings : Brazil; Carbon; Climate Change; Conservation of Natural Resources; Forests; Greenhouse Gases
TL;DR:
It is found that the crediting baselines established ex-ante by voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon to counterfactuals constructed ex-post based on the quasi-experimental synthetic control method assume consistently higher deforestation thancounterfactual forest loss in synthetic control sites.
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UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
1. No Poverty
(Web of Science)
15. Life on Land
(Web of Science)
Source: ORCID
Added: September 15, 2020
Significance There are efforts to integrate the reduced carbon emissions from avoided deforestation claimed by voluntary REDD+ projects into national greenhouse gas emission inventories. This requires careful consideration of whether and how much of the reduced carbon emissions can be attributed to projects. However, credible evidence on the effectiveness of such voluntary activities is limited. We adopted the quasi-experimental synthetic control method to examine the causal effects of 12 voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon. We compared these ex-post estimates of impacts with the reductions in forest loss claimed by those projects based on ex-ante baselines. Results suggest that the accepted methodologies for quantifying carbon credits overstate impacts on avoided deforestation and climate change mitigation.