@misc{GriscomBuschCookPattonetal.2020, author = {Griscom, Bronson W. and Busch, Jonah and Cook-Patton, Susan C. and Ellis, Peter W. and Funk, Jason and Leavitt, Sara M. and Lomax, Guy and Turner, Will R. and Chapman, Melissa and Streck, Charlotte}, title = {National mitigation potential from natural climate solutions in the tropics}, series = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {1794}, issn = {1867-5808}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-51369}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-513692}, pages = {13}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Better land stewardship is needed to achieve the Paris Agreement's temperature goal, particularly in the tropics, where greenhouse gas emissions from the destruction of ecosystems are largest, and where the potential for additional land carbon storage is greatest. As countries enhance their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, confusion persists about the potential contribution of better land stewardship to meeting the Agreement's goal to hold global warming below 2 degrees C. We assess cost-effective tropical country-level potential of natural climate solutions (NCS)-protection, improved management and restoration of ecosystems-to deliver climate mitigation linked with sustainable development goals (SDGs). We identify groups of countries with distinctive NCS portfolios, and we explore factors (governance, financial capacity) influencing the feasibility of unlocking national NCS potential. Cost-effective tropical NCS offers globally significant climate mitigation in the coming decades (6.56 Pg CO(2)e yr(-1) at less than 100 US\$ per Mg CO(2)e). In half of the tropical countries, cost-effective NCS could mitigate over half of national emissions. In more than a quarter of tropical countries, cost-effective NCS potential is greater than national emissions. We identify countries where, with international financing and political will, NCS can cost-effectively deliver the majority of enhanced NDCs while transforming national economies and contributing to SDGs. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.}, language = {en} } @article{GriscomBuschCookPattonetal.2020, author = {Griscom, Bronson W. and Busch, Jonah and Cook-Patton, Susan C. and Ellis, Peter W. and Funk, Jason and Leavitt, Sara M. and Lomax, Guy and Turner, Will R. and Chapman, Melissa and Streck, Charlotte}, title = {National mitigation potential from natural climate solutions in the tropics}, series = {Biological sciences}, volume = {375}, journal = {Biological sciences}, number = {1794}, publisher = {The Royal Society Publishing}, address = {London}, issn = {0962-8436}, doi = {10.1098/rstb.2019.0126}, pages = {1 -- 11}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Better land stewardship is needed to achieve the Paris Agreement's temperature goal, particularly in the tropics, where greenhouse gas emissions from the destruction of ecosystems are largest, and where the potential for additional land carbon storage is greatest. As countries enhance their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, confusion persists about the potential contribution of better land stewardship to meeting the Agreement's goal to hold global warming below 2 degrees C. We assess cost-effective tropical country-level potential of natural climate solutions (NCS)-protection, improved management and restoration of ecosystems-to deliver climate mitigation linked with sustainable development goals (SDGs). We identify groups of countries with distinctive NCS portfolios, and we explore factors (governance, financial capacity) influencing the feasibility of unlocking national NCS potential. Cost-effective tropical NCS offers globally significant climate mitigation in the coming decades (6.56 Pg CO(2)e yr(-1) at less than 100 US\$ per Mg CO(2)e). In half of the tropical countries, cost-effective NCS could mitigate over half of national emissions. In more than a quarter of tropical countries, cost-effective NCS potential is greater than national emissions. We identify countries where, with international financing and political will, NCS can cost-effectively deliver the majority of enhanced NDCs while transforming national economies and contributing to SDGs. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.}, language = {en} } @article{RoeStreckBeachetal.2021, author = {Roe, Stephanie and Streck, Charlotte and Beach, Robert and Busch, Jonah and Chapman, Melissa and Daioglou, Vassilis and Deppermann, Andre and Doelman, Jonathan and Emmet-Booth, Jeremy and Engelmann, Jens and Fricko, Oliver and Frischmann, Chad and Funk, Jason and Grassi, Giacomo and Griscom, Bronson and Havlik, Petr and Hanssen, Steef and Humpen{\"o}der, Florian and Landholm, David and Lomax, Guy and Lehmann, Johannes and Mesnildrey, Leah and Nabuurs, Gert-Jan and Popp, Alexander and Rivard, Charlotte and Sanderman, Jonathan and Sohngen, Brent and Smith, Pete and Stehfest, Elke and Woolf, Dominic and Lawrence, Deborah}, title = {Land-based measures to mitigate climate change}, series = {Global change biology}, volume = {27}, journal = {Global change biology}, number = {23}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1365-2486}, doi = {10.1111/gcb.15873}, pages = {6025 -- 6058}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Land-based climate mitigation measures have gained significant attention and importance in public and private sector climate policies. Building on previous studies, we refine and update the mitigation potentials for 20 land-based measures in >200 countries and five regions, comparing "bottom-up" sectoral estimates with integrated assessment models (IAMs). We also assess implementation feasibility at the country level. Cost-effective (available up to \$100/tCO2eq) land-based mitigation is 8-13.8 GtCO2eq yr-1 between 2020 and 2050, with the bottom end of this range representing the IAM median and the upper end representing the sectoral estimate. The cost-effective sectoral estimate is about 40\% of available technical potential and is in line with achieving a 1.5°C pathway in 2050. Compared to technical potentials, cost-effective estimates represent a more realistic and actionable target for policy. The cost-effective potential is approximately 50\% from forests and other ecosystems, 35\% from agriculture, and 15\% from demand-side measures. The potential varies sixfold across the five regions assessed (0.75-4.8 GtCO2eq yr-1) and the top 15 countries account for about 60\% of the global potential. Protection of forests and other ecosystems and demand-side measures present particularly high mitigation efficiency, high provision of co-benefits, and relatively lower costs. The feasibility assessment suggests that governance, economic investment, and socio-cultural conditions influence the likelihood that land-based mitigation potentials are realized. A substantial portion of potential (80\%) is in developing countries and LDCs, where feasibility barriers are of greatest concern. Assisting countries to overcome barriers may result in significant quantities of near-term, low-cost mitigation while locally achieving important climate adaptation and development benefits. Opportunities among countries vary widely depending on types of land-based measures available, their potential co-benefits and risks, and their feasibility. Enhanced investments and country-specific plans that accommodate this complexity are urgently needed to realize the large global potential from improved land stewardship.}, language = {en} } @article{Streck2020, author = {Streck, Charlotte}, title = {Who owns REDD+?}, series = {Forests}, volume = {11}, journal = {Forests}, number = {9}, publisher = {MDPI}, address = {Basel}, issn = {1999-4907}, doi = {10.3390/f11090959}, pages = {15}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The question of who is entitled to benefit from transactions under the United Nations framework to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) remains one of the most controversial issues surrounding cooperative efforts to reduce deforestation in developing countries. REDD+ has been conceived as an international framework to encourage voluntary efforts in developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance carbon removals from forest activities. It was designed as an international framework under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to enable the generation of emission reductions and removals (ERRs) at the national-and, provisionally, the subnational-level and is, thus, primarily a creature of international law. However, in defining forest carbon ERRs, the international framework competes with national emission trading systems and domestic REDD+ legislation as well as private standards that define units traded on the voluntary carbon market. As results-based and carbon market systems emerge, the question remains: Who can claim participation in REDD+ and voluntary carbon market projects? The existence of different international, national and private standards that value ERRs poses a challenge to countries that participate in REDD+ as well as to communities and private actors participating in voluntary carbon market projects. This paper seeks to clarify the nature and limitation of rights pertaining to REDD+ market transactions. It also links the notion of carbon rights to both carbon markets and government's decision on benefit sharing. Applying a legal lens, this paper helps to understand the various claims and underlying rights to participate in REDD+ transactions and addresses ambiguities that can lead to conflict around REDD+ implementation. The definition of carbon rights and the legal nature of carbon credits depend on local law and differ between countries. However, by categorizing carbon rights, the paper summarizes several legal considerations that are relevant for regulating REDD+ and sharing the financial benefits of transacting ERRs.}, language = {en} } @article{Streck2021, author = {Streck, Charlotte}, title = {REDD+ and leakage}, series = {Climate policy}, volume = {21}, journal = {Climate policy}, number = {6}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, address = {London}, issn = {1469-3062}, doi = {10.1080/14693062.2021.1920363}, pages = {843 -- 852}, year = {2021}, abstract = {A corporate appetite for greenhouse gas reduction from nature-based solutions, in general, and REDD+, in particular, is driving a rapidly growing voluntary carbon market. The interest to invest in solutions that avoid or reduce deforestation holds the potential to significantly support national efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement's temperature goals. However, controversy over leakage coupled with confusion and insufficient understanding of spill-over and displacement effects risk holding back necessary investments. This article seeks to shed light on different concepts surrounding leakage, including underlying dynamics and possible solutions on how to address them. In doing so, it makes the case for integrating avoided deforestation projects into national REDD+ strategies and highlights the need for a multi-level and multi-actor approach towards REDD+. Leakage occurs at all levels of implementation of REDD+ activities, at the project, programme and policy level, and both within and beyond national boundaries. Local leakage can largely be controlled through project design that analyses and addresses the proximate causes of leakage and underlying drivers, however, leakage is more difficult to avoid at the programme or policy level. Market leakage is particularly complex and harder to manage, but can - to a certain extent - be modelled and accounted for. Successful REDD+ efforts will combine demand-side measures with national or jurisdictional programmes that support governance reforms and integrate local investments in nature-based solutions and avoided deforestation projects. Key policy insights Emissions leakage is a ubiquitous phenomenon in climate mitigation that occurs at all levels of implementation. However, it is of particular concern in the case of REDD+, where reduced deforestation in one geographical area can lead to an increase in forest loss in another area. Leakage has to be managed and monitored at different scales: locally through avoided deforestation projects that address local drivers of deforestation; nationally through well-designed REDD+ policies; and internationally, among others, through demand-side standards in countries importing forest-risk commodities. Larger-scale programmes that link government interventions with efforts to eliminate deforestation from commodity supply chains, conservation efforts and avoided deforestation projects can limit leakage while helping to integrate various conservation and financing strategies. 'Nesting' of avoided deforestation projects into larger REDD+ programmes, at sub-national or national scale, allows for the integration of greenhouse gas accounting across different scales of implementation.}, language = {en} } @article{Streck2020, author = {Streck, Charlotte}, title = {Filling in for Governments?}, series = {Journal for European Environmental \& Planning Law}, volume = {17}, journal = {Journal for European Environmental \& Planning Law}, number = {1}, publisher = {Martinus Nijhoff Pub}, address = {Leiden}, issn = {1613-7272}, doi = {10.1163/18760104-01701003}, pages = {5 -- 28}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change abandons the Kyoto Protocol's paradigm of binding emissions targets and relies instead on countries' voluntary contributions. However, the Paris Agreement encourages not only governments but also sub-national governments, corporations and civil society to contribute to reaching ambitious climate goals. In a transition from the regulated architecture of the Kyoto Protocol to the open system of the Paris Agreement, the Agreement seeks to integrate non-state actors into the treaty-based climate regime. In 2014 the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Peru and France created the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (and launched the Global Climate Action portal). In December 2019, this portal recorded more than twenty thousand climate-commitments of private and public non-state entities, making the non-state venues of international climate meetings decisively more exciting than the formal negotiation space. This level engagement and governments' response to it raises a flurry of questions in relation to the evolving nature of the climate regime and climate change governance, including the role of private actors as standard setters and the lack of accountability mechanisms for non-state actions. This paper takes these developments as occasion to discuss the changing role of private actors in the climate regime.}, language = {en} } @article{Streck2021, author = {Streck, Charlotte}, title = {Strengthening the Paris Agreement by holding non-state actors accountable}, series = {Transnational environmental law}, volume = {10}, journal = {Transnational environmental law}, number = {3}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {2047-1025}, doi = {10.1017/S2047102521000091}, pages = {493 -- 515}, year = {2021}, abstract = {While the intergovernmental climate regime increasingly recognizes the role of non-state actors in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement (PA), the normative linkages between the intergovernmental climate regime and the non-state dominated 'transnational partnership governance' remain vague and tentative. A formalized engagement of the intergovernmental climate regime with transnational partnerships can increase the effectiveness of partnerships in delivering on climate mitigation and adaptation, thereby complementing rather than replacing government action. The proposed active engagement with partnerships would include (i) collecting and analyzing information to develop and prioritize areas for transnational and partnership engagement; (ii) defining minimum criteria and procedural requirements to be listed on an enhanced Non-state Actor Zone for Climate Action platform; (iii) actively supporting strategic initiatives; (iv) facilitating market or non-market finance as part of Article 6 PA; and (v) evaluating the effectiveness of partnerships in the context of the enhanced transparency framework (Article 13 PA) and the global stocktake (Article 14 PA). The UNFCCC Secretariat could facilitate engagement and problem solving by actively orchestrating transnational partnerships. Constructing effective implementation partnerships, recording their mitigation and adaptation goals, and holding them accountable may help to move climate talks from rhetoric to action.}, language = {en} } @article{Streck2021, author = {Streck, Charlotte}, title = {How voluntary carbon markets can drive climate ambition}, series = {Journal of energy \& natural resources law : the journal of the Section on Energy and Natural Resources Law of the International Bar Association}, volume = {39}, journal = {Journal of energy \& natural resources law : the journal of the Section on Energy and Natural Resources Law of the International Bar Association}, number = {3}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0264-6811}, doi = {10.1080/02646811.2021.1881275}, pages = {367 -- 374}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Over the last three years, corporate interest in voluntary carbon markets has almost tripled, and this trend has seemed to resist the COVID-19 economic fallout. If managed well, this market has the potential to become a very significant driver of mitigation action, in particular in developing countries, which supply the majority of voluntary carbon offsets. Robust standards and rules can overcome concerns that voluntary carbon markets could lead to company greenwashing and undermine the goals of the Paris Agreement. On the contrary, voluntary corporate investments can encourage more ambitious government climate action, and encourage governments to make more ambitious pledges under the Paris Agreement. Multisectoral mitigation partnerships can ensure the complementarity of public and private action and support policy alignment and investments in priority sectors and regions.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Streck2021, author = {Streck, Charlotte}, title = {From laggards to leaders}, series = {Frontiers in international environmental law : doceans and climate challenges : essays in honour of David Freestone}, booktitle = {Frontiers in international environmental law : doceans and climate challenges : essays in honour of David Freestone}, editor = {Barnes, Richard and Long, Ron{\´a}n}, publisher = {Brill Nijhoff}, address = {Leiden}, isbn = {978-90-04-37287-0}, doi = {10.1163/9789004372887_004}, pages = {75 -- 105}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change embraces the participation of non-state actors in a separate governance track - the 'Non-state actor zone for global action' (nazca) - that runs alongside the formal track of unfccc negotiations and the implementation of the Paris Agreement by State Parties through 'nationally determined contributions'. unfccc Secretariat is entrusted with orchestrating non-state global and transnational initiatives, partnerships and networks. The involvement of non-state actors in the implementation of the Paris Agreement helps to address an action gap by countries that are unable or unwilling to implement ambitious ndcs. However, the increased prominence of initiatives driven by non-state actors also increases their direct and indirect influence on processes and rules which raises a number of questions with regards to the legitimacy of action and the democratic deficit of the global climate regime. Balancing legitimacy with effectiveness requires non-state initiatives to ensure transparent and inclusive governance, and accountability towards progress against their goals and pledges. Despite its encouragement towards private initiatives, the Paris Agreement creates surprisingly little regulatory space for non-state actors to gain hold. Neither are there measures that would link ndcs to nazca initiatives, nor are functional requirements such as transparency or reporting extended to non-state initiatives. While the Paris Agreement marks an important step towards harnessing private sector ability and ambition for climate action, more remains to be done to create a truly enabling framework for private action to strive and complement public efforts to address climate change.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Streck2020, author = {Streck, Charlotte}, title = {Public and Private Responsibility and the Evolving Climate Regime}, series = {Leidenschaft und Augenmaß : sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf Entwicklung, Verwaltung, Umwelt und Klima : Festschrift f{\"u}r Harald Fuhr}, booktitle = {Leidenschaft und Augenmaß : sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf Entwicklung, Verwaltung, Umwelt und Klima : Festschrift f{\"u}r Harald Fuhr}, publisher = {Nomos}, address = {Baden-Baden}, isbn = {978-3-8487-5249-2}, doi = {10.5771/9783845294292-221}, pages = {221 -- 234}, year = {2020}, language = {en} }