Bio-carbon Sequestration and Conservation to Combat Climate Change: Promoting Rural Development, Energy Solutions, and Biodiversity

Emerging policy and market frameworks to mitigate climate changes provide exciting opportunities for linking a number of interconnected objectives, including climate change mitigation (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC) biodiversity conservation (Convention on Biological Diversity, CBD) and poverty reduction (Millennium Development Goals, MDGs). By recognizing the sequestration potential or “sink” effects that enable removal of greenhouse gases resulting from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) under the UNFCCC, and its clean development mechanism (CDM), and the recent acceptance that the effects of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) projects are eligible in carbon emission trading schemes under the Kyoto protocol, a strong connection is already being established between the climate change and biodiversity agendas. This programme brings together experts from climate change research, ecological sciences, finance and the biodiversity conservation community, to explore policy options, research requirements and pilot case studies for the effective linking of the objectives of the UNFCCC, the CBD and relevant MDGs through bio-carbon sequestration projects and associated emission trading schemes.

Contact: Peter Dogsé, Programme Specialist, SC/EES