Please download: the report of the session « REDD beyond carbon: payment for environmental services (PES) and non-carbon benefits in a prospect of emergence for the Central Africa states»

Non-carbon benefits (NCBs) have been given specific focus under the Cancun agreement in 2010 and since the Bonn Conference, accounting for NCB when implementing the activities referred to in decision 1/CP.16, paragraph 70 has become important. However, some questions have now become critical about “what can be considered as NCBs?”, “how may these NCBs be enhanced in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiation process?”

A strategy to better recognize, incentivize and effectively promote NCBs requires a good identification and prioritization of such benefits at the national level. In this vein, the COMIFAC (Commission of Ministers in charge of Forests in Central Africa) has been concerned about the contextualization  or breaking down of the opportunities offered by the NCBs approach in the REDD+ mechanism to account for the national development vision and priorities of its member countries. Indeed, the COMIFAC views the improvement of forest governance, preservation of ecosystem services, climate change adaptation, improvement of social and economic conditions, as well as support to social and cultural values as some key categories of NCBs.

This session seeks to contribute to these reflections, trying to address the question “To what extent the REDD+ approach may be combined with other PES schemes to generate non-carbon benefits in a political context of economic emergence for Central African states in the coming decades.

More precisely, this session has the following objectives:

• Understand how non-carbon benefits can be maximized in the design and implementation of national REDD+ strategies
• Explore ways on how to strengthen the synergies between adaptation and mitigation activities
• Explore the potential of a “landscape approach” to provide environmental services for socioeconomic development
• Explore how to integrate carbon finance, and finance for other ecosystem services, in an integrated financing strategy

Picture: Merline Touko Tchoko

Please download below the report of the session « REDD beyond carbon: payment for environmental services (PES) and non-carbon benefits in a prospect of emergence for the Central Africa states»