REDD+ forest carbon investments, biodiversity and the promise of a Green Economy

This chapter explores the links between reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) and the Green Economy (GE), and particularly the ways in which GE investments into forest carbon may yield economic growth. It highlights the development of REDD+ forest carbon policies as an important learning experience for thinking about the types of transformative changes envisioned by the GE. There is considerable potential for REDD+ forest carbon investments to render green economic growth in tropical forested countries. The most direct economic gains of REDD+ to participating forested countries are associated with forest carbon payments to developing countries and landholders. Moreover, REDD+ policies bring a range of additional economic opportunities for associated support services within participating countries, including labour involved in carbon stock monitoring and verification, forest management, and sustainable timber extraction. Potential economic losses arising from REDD+ are magnified when opportunity cost calculations also consider economic impacts upon upstream and downstream industries.