Deforestation and Emerging Greenhouse Gas Compliance Regimes: Toward a Global Environmental Law of Forests, Carbon, and Climate Governance

Abstract

This chapter reviews the current status of and prospects for efforts to include emissions from deforestation (and international forest carbon activities in general) in emerging greenhouse gas compliance regimes at the international level; future iterations of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS); and in the United States. Three lessons emerge from this survey. First, in contrast to international climate policy debates during the 1990s and the early 2000s, deforestation has clearly emerged as a viable object of climate governance. Second, the policy architecture that is taking shape in the effort to bring reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) into climate governance is decidedly pluralistic, with important developments occurring at multiple levels and across multiple jurisdictions, illustrating the development of a “global environmental law” of forests, carbon, and climate governance. Third, the United States (at both national and sub-national levels) has emerged as an important driver of efforts to construct a workable governance structure for compliance-grade REDD programs by signaling that emerging GHG compliance systems in the U.S. (most notably, California) could include provisions recognizing REDD activities in tropical forest jurisdictions around the world.

Keywords: environmental law, climate change, deforestation, REDD, carbon

JEL Classification: A14, K32, K33, Q23, Q28