Search

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) represents the strategic linkage between a climate change regime and international forest policy. But the future success of REDD+ will depend, in part, on how policy makers perceive the challenges and opportunities it offers stakeholders. This study investigated perceptions toward REDD+ based on interviews with 60 Indonesia-based key-informants influencing REDD+ policy. Interviewees cited “governance reform,” “network building,” “conservation,” and “economic development” as opportunities. The perceived challenges included “REDD+’s complexity,” “uncertainty of REDD+ decisions,” “REDD+ is a tool of developed countries,” and problems inherent within existing forest governance related to coordination, lack of capacity, ambiguity of legal system, and corruption. Adopting a clientelist perspective we draw attention to the underlying causes of these problems and the implication for REDD+. Despite highlighting significant challenges, most informants viewed the REDD+ mechanism as a potentially useful instrument to improve forest governance. Based on our findings, we suggest that identifying governance reforms that do not require major structural changes in the bureaucratic system in the short-term hold the best chance of success for capitalizing on the opportunities REDD+ may offer in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a retrospective summary of events related to energy policies and technology, emission policy and climatic change. The United Nations held a meeting on climate change in Bali, Indonesia wherein 187 countries agreed on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions deeply by 2012. The China and India together account for about 70%of the increase in oil consumption over last 2 years. According to Morgan Stanley the world market for clean energy could reach $500 billion by 2020 and $1 trillion by 2030.