"Foreword" [2016] ELECD 605; in Voigt, Christina (ed), "Research Handbook on REDD-Plus and International Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) xiv

Book Title: Research Handbook on REDD-Plus and International Law

Editor(s): Voigt, Christina

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783478309

Section Title: Foreword

Number of pages: 4

Extract:

Foreword


This volume, consisting of a collection of essays examining the emerging
institutional and governance arrangement known as REDD+ (reducing
emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation and forest degradation)
from a multiplicity of perspectives, provides an excellent opportunity
to think about what students of governance know as "the problem of
interplay."1 This concern, which has become the focus of a considerable
volume of research in recent years, directs attention to the fact that regimes
or governance systems do not exist in a vacuum. They can and often do
interact with one another in ways that have significant consequences, not
only for the attainment of stated goals but also as sources of more or less
prominent unintended consequences or side effects.
In the case of REDD+, this is partly a matter of thinking about inter-
actions between this initiative and other elements of the regime complex
dealing with climate.2 There is some disagreement about the exact con-
tribution of deforestation and forest degradation to global greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions.3 Nonetheless, trees not only store carbon; they
also remove carbon from the atmosphere by fixing carbon as they grow.
A successful effort to protect forests would make a real difference with
regard to addressing the problem of climate change. The question, then,
is how does REDD+ dovetail with other elements of the climate regime?
Does this initiative compete for a finite pot of funds available to deal with
climate change, so that investing in REDD+ would reduce resources avail-
...