Jurisdictional REDD+ and the Potential for Strategic Behavior

• In Event: Effects of Climate Change and External Climate Policies on Domestic Politics

Abstract

Jurisdictional REDD+ has emerged as a leading carbon finance opportunity that are designed to reduce emissions through the participation of entire political jurisdictions. Such jurisdictional approaches have been touted to avoid many of the overcrediting concerns present in project-based REDD+. However, little is known about whether new concerns may arise from current jurisdictional REDD+ protocols. In this paper, we consider and test for evidence of strategic behavior, both by jurisdictions themselves and the landowners residing within. We find that there exist opportunities for strategic enrollment, whereby jurisdictions could strategically enroll to receive payments without jurisdictional REDD+ generating any behavior change. Despite this opportunity, we find no evidence of systematic abuse among already existing projects. We further use synthetic control methods to explore whether ex-ante moral hazard may undermine the carbon benefits of these approaches. We find that deforestation often increases temporarily after the start of jurisdictional REDD+ programs, indicative of a potential anticipatory response on the part of landowners within soon-to-be enrolled jurisdictions.

Authors

• Luke Sanford, Yale University

• Alberto Garcia, Yale University School of the Environment