REDD and Clean Technologies Innovations: Is There a Trade-Off?
A key policy question when discussing REDD is how to balance low-cost forestry emission reductions, available in the near term, with investments to drive technological innovation in energy, industry, and other sectors over the longer period. In this article we report a research effort showing that the link of REDD to an international carbon market is, as expected, economically efficient. In addition, provided that the climate policy is stringent (we explore here a 535 ppmv CO2e concentration target), the cost savings due to REDD should entail only a modest tradeoff in terms of reduced clean energy innovation. Reduced clean energy innovation could in principle handicap future efforts to reduce global emissions. However, this analysis suggests that the availability of REDD, in particular when combined with the possibility of banking emission allowances, could provide a head start on climate mitigation that is an aggregate hedge against uncertain future costs. Integrating REDD into global carbon markets could thus lower policy costs and facilitate more ambitious climate policies now and in the future.
Reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation: issues for policy design and implementation
There is a new international policy focus on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), as well as promoting forest conservation, the sustainable management of forests and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD-plus). The recent Conference of Parties meeting of 196 countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun, Mexico (December 2010) was able to advance initiatives on REDD-plus even while there was limited progress on fossil fuel related aspects of an international climate change agreement. The Cancun meeting recognised that there was strong and broad support for REDD-plus and was able to agree to the development of a formal Mechanism under the UNFCCC for incentivizing REDD-plus activities. Implementing the Mechanism is another matter, and will require the development and coordination of country REDD-plus readiness and financing, including detailed consideration of country reference levels, measurement, reporting and verification methodologies, and sub-national and national program coordination.
Mesozoic rifting and basin inversion along the northern African Tethyan margin: an overview
Abstract The northern African Tethyan margin registered three major rifting episodes from the latest Palaeozoic-earliest Mesozoic to the earliest Cenozoic. Break-up of Gondwana was initiated in the late Carboniferous. Along the northern African-Arabian plate margin rifting propagated westward from the northeastern Arabian margin to Morocco during the Permian and Triassic, and was accompanied by Mid-Late Triassic-earliest Liassic extensive alkaline flow basalts. Rifting continued during the Liassic, e.g. in the Moghrebian Atlas troughs. A second stage of rifting occurred in the Late Jurassic and continued into, or was rejuvenated during, the Early Cretaceous. Along the east Mediterranean margin, some large E-W trending rifts formed, often with associated volcanism, e.g. southern Sirt and Abu Gharadig. Most researchers believe the oceanization of the eastern Mediterranean basin occurred at this time. Flexural subsidence affected the Moghrebian Atlas, including the Riffian-Tellian domain, where a thick flysch series was deposited. Two short-lived, but widespread and tectonically important, compressional or wrench-dominated events occurred during the Santonian and the latest Maastrichtian. From Morocco to Oman, most sedimentary basins were folded and inverted at these times. The Santonian event resulted from onset of the collision between the African-Arabian and Eurasian plates. New stress-fields favoured NE-SW extension along the African plate margin, generating or rejuvenating some rifts, e.g. in the Euphrates trough and in the Libya-Tunisia region (northwestern Sirt, Pelagian Sea). Rifting and magmatism continued in these regions into the Paleocene. During the Mesozoic, therefore, the northern margin of the African-Arabian plate registered both rifting resulting in the oceanization of the Tethys and rifting resulting from the initiation of the closure of the Tethys. The intraplate domain exhibited echoes of the tectonic events affecting the margin.