Technical Guidance on Development of a REDD+ Reference Level

Summary

The Lowering Emissions in Asia's Forests Programme (LEAF) website includes a variety of resources and tools related to technical capacity building focused on REDD+, climate change mitigation, gender mainstreaming, and policy and market incentives for improved forest management and land-use planning in Asia.

This manual is directed at national and regional governmental staff and partners assigned to the design and implementation of the technical components of a national and subnational REDD+ program.  The document is also designed to provide technical guidance to potential project developers and implementers of REDD+ interventions. The focus of the technical information in this document is on how to design and implement a RL. Details on how to develop a Forest Carbon Monitoring System (FCMS) and MRV system are not provided, however, it will be important for RL designers to consider how it will interact with these two components.

The manual is organized into multiple chapters that describe the several components needed to develop a RL. Although an attempt was made to provide readers of various backgrounds to benefit from all chapters of the document, some users may want to focus their attention on specific sections most relevant to their responsibilities and expertise areas. The document is not a prescriptive step-by-step guide, but rather describes how the technical components of establishing a RL fits within  the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) framework and the best practices that can be used to produce transparent, consistent and accurate estimates of historic emissions with low uncertainties that feed into the RL projection.

Chapter 2 provides an overview on what REDD+ is and the main technical components that need to be developed to estimate emissions. Chapter 3 delineates the key policy decisions that will need to be made during the design of the RL. Chapter 4 describes the specific technical components required for developing a RL. This chapter is directed at readers with technical backgrounds in remote sensing, GIS, forestry, and carbon accounting.