Guyana Proposal for Reference Level for REDD+
September 2015
Summary
This document presents Guyana’s submission of its reference level (RL) for deforestation, and forest degradation due to timber harvesting practices for results-based payments for REDD+ under the UNFCCC. In this document, and accompanying technical reports, Guyana has submitted detailed information on its historic emissions and projected emissions that are:
1. transparent, with full documentation and highly sufficient for reviewers to assess the extent to which good practice requirements have been met;
2. complete, whereby all relevant emissions categories are estimated and reported;
3. consistent, whereby the methodologies used over the historic period are the same and use the same implementers so the differences from year to year are real and not an artifact of change in methodology; and
4. accurate and with low uncertainty so that results are neither under or over-estimated.
The long term historical deforestation in Guyana has been very low over the whole country – and is one of the lowest in the world. Guyana has presented a rationale for why the forest RL should take into account national circumstances as the likely future emissions are not well captured by historical ones. The key reason for this is that Guyana’s ongoing development is creating new economic and social incentives which can significantly impact rates of forest cover. By contrast, standing forest has historically not generated any economic value to the nation. Therefore, a programme of REDD+ based on prevailing good practice methods must generate sufficient economic incentives to reflect the global benefits provided by Guyana’s efforts in maintaining standing forests, and create new economic alternatives to deforestation that will limit any future increase in emissions…Click here for more information
UNFCCC Final Assesssment Report
Date: 13 October, 2015
Summary
This report covers the technical assessment of the submission of Guyana, on a voluntary basis, on its proposed forest reference emission level (FREL), in accordance with decision 13/CP.19 and in the context of results-based payments. The FREL proposed by Guyana covers the activities “reducing emissions from deforestation” and “reducing emissions from forest degradation”, which are two of the activities included in decision 1/CP.16, paragraph 70. In its submission, Guyana has developed a national FREL. The assessment team notes that the data and information used by Guyana in constructing its FREL are transparent and complete, and are in overall accordance with the guidelines contained in the annex to decision 12/CP.17. This report contains the assessed FREL and a few areas identified for further technical improvement by the assessment team, according to the scope of the technical assessment in the annex to decision 13/CP.19…Click here for more information