Despite the importance of tropical forest conservation in achieving global sustainability goals and the key role of forest-risk commodity trade in driving deforestation, consumer country policy ...options for reducing imported deforestation have received limited scholarly attention. Drawing on gray literature and a European Commission public consultation, we identify 86 policy options for the European Union to address deforestation. We assess the political feasibility and map the “theory of change” (TOC)—the causal chain through which the policies address deforestation—for each of these policy options, identifying a trade-off between feasibility and potential impacts: information-based and cooperative policies, which dominate our sample, typically exhibit high feasibility, but mostly lack convincing TOCs, while more stringent regulatory and market-based policy options generally have lower feasibility. We propose three principles for overcoming the feasibility-impact dilemma: (1) build policies on proven TOCs, (2) use policy mixes, and (3) work with key stakeholders, supply chains, and regions.
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•From 1,141 proposals, we identify 86 EU policy options for reducing deforestation•We assess the political feasibility to identify policy barriers•Many policy options lack a proven theory of change for reducing deforestation•We identify a trade-off between political feasibility and potential policy impact
Images of distressed orangutans in Indonesia and forest fires in Brazil have increased public awareness of deforestation across the globe. Still, deforestation continues more or less unabated, driven by demand for forest-risk commodities, such as palm, soy, cocoa, and beef. What can the European Union (EU) and other consumer regions do to address this problem? Here we present 86 policy options for the EU to address tropical deforestation, identified through a review of gray literature and EU stakeholder consultation responses. Analyzing these, we show that policy options that are politically feasible policies tend to have a weaker theory of change—the causal chain through which the policies address deforestation—setting up a trade-off between feasibility and impact. However, there are exceptions, such as mandatory due diligence, which show potential impact and appear politically feasible. Through policy mixing and working with key stakeholders, supply chains, and producer regions, these barriers can be overcome.
Images of distressed orangutans in Indonesia and forest fires in Brazil have increased public awareness of deforestation. Still, deforestation continues unabated, driven by demand for forest-risk commodities, such as palm and soy. Here, we present 86 policy options for the EU to reduce imported deforestation. We identify a trade-off between policy feasibility and potential impact. Mixing different policies and working with key stakeholders, supply chains, and producer regions can help overcome this trade-off.
In this paper, we aim to assess householdsâ vulnerability to food-price increases in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We use two established indicators of sensitivity to food price changes â ...one measuring the share of income spent on food, the other measuring net sales of food compared to total expenditures. In contrast to earlier studies, we look at all food items and not just one or a few staple foods and find that the exclusion of non-staple foods has a significant impact on the results. We find that the shares of the populations spending more than half of their income on food lie in the range 62% to 81% in rural areas and 26% to 67% in urban areas. Further, we find that in all countries/regions studied, most households (74% to 99%) in rural areas are net buyers of food and stand to lose in the short term from higher food prices.
The possibility of adopting national targets for carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from tropical deforestation in a future international climate treaty has received increasing attention recently. This ...attention has been prompted by proposals to this end and more intensified talks on possible commitments for developing countries beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol. We analyze four main scientific and political challenges associated with national targets for emissions from tropical deforestation: (1) reducing the uncertainties in emission inventories, (2) preserving the environmental integrity of the treaty, (3) promoting political acceptance and participation in the regime, and (4) providing economic incentives for reduced deforestation. We draw the following conclusions. (1) Although there are large uncertainties in carbon flux from deforestation, these are in the same range as for other emissions included in the current Kyoto protocol (i.e., non-CO₂ GHGs), and they can be reduced. However, for forest degradation processes the uncertainties are larger. A large challenge lies in building competence and institutions for monitoring the full spectrum of land use changes in developing countries. (2 and 3) Setting targets for deforestation is difficult, and uncertainties in future emissions imply a risk of creating 'tropical hot air'. However, there are proposals that may sufficiently deal with this, and these proposals may also have the advantage of making the targets more attractive, politically speaking. Moreover, we conclude that while a full carbon accounting system will likely be politically unacceptable for tropical countries, the current carbon accounting system should be broadened to include forest degradation in order to safeguard environmental integrity. (4) Doubts can be cast over the possible effect a climate regime alone will have on deforestation rates, though little thorough analysis of this issue has been made.
The economic benefits of a multi-gas approach to climate change mitigation are clear. However, there is still a debate on how to make the trade-off between different greenhouse gases (GHGs). The ...trade-off debate has mainly centered on the use of Global Warming Potentials (GWPs), governing the trade-off under the Kyoto Protocol, with results showing that the cost-effective valuation of short-lived GHGs, like methane (CH₄), should be lower than its current GWP value if the ultimate aim is to stabilize the anthropogenic temperature change. However, contrary to this, there have also been proposals that early mitigation mainly should be targeted on short-lived GHGs. In this paper we analyze the cost-effective trade-off between a short-lived GHG, CH₄, and a long-lived GHG, carbon dioxide (CO₂), when a temperature target is to be met, taking into consideration the current uncertainty of the climate sensitivity as well as the likelihood that this will be reduced in the future. The analysis is carried out using an integrated climate and economic model (MiMiC) and the results from this model are explored and explained using a simplified analytical economic model. The main finding is that the introduction of uncertainty and learning about the climate sensitivity increases the near-term cost-effective valuation of CH₄ relative to CO₂. The larger the uncertainty span, the higher the valuation of the short-lived gas. For an uncertainty span of ±1°C around an expected climate sensitivity of 3°C, CH₄ is cost-effectively valued 6.8 times as high as CO₂ in year 2005. This is almost twice as high as the valuation in a deterministic case, but still significantly lower than its GWP₁₀₀ value.
By estimating that the cost of unmitigated climate damages is an order of magnitude higher than most earlier estimates, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change has had a major influence ...on the policy discussion on climate change. Not surprisingly, severe criticism has been levied against the report, especially by those who claim that the Stern Review's results hinge mainly on a discount rate that is too low. While we have no strong objections to the discounting assumptions adopted in the Stern Review, our main point in this article is that the conclusions reached in the Stern Review can be justified without using a low discount rate. We argue that nonmarket damages from climate change are probably underestimated and that future scarcities caused by the changing composition of the economy and climate change should lead to rising relative prices for certain goods and services. This will raise the estimated damage of climate change and modify as well as counteract the effect of discounting. We illustrate this effect using a slightly modified version of Nordhaus's DICE model and show that taking relative prices into account can have as large an effect on economically warranted abatement levels as a low discount rate.
We review the total allocations under the EU ETS first phase and compare these against historical emissions, projections, and national Kyoto targets. We conclude that most Phase 1 allocations are ...excessive on all these measures, particularly the last, and argue that this is potentially damaging in several respects. We argue that: fundamentally different allocation methodologies (that avoid updating and referencing against projected emissions) must be considered for Phase 2; that industrial concerns about competitiveness should be carefully scrutinized on a specific sub-sector basis rather than taken as a generic reason for generous allocations; and that EU-level institutions should agree stronger guidelines to ensure a greater degree of coordination, comparability and transparency in Phase 2 national allocation plans.
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