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CCB Standards: Forest Conservation Projects no Longer Discarded
"Fighting Global Climate Change, Conserving Biodiversity, Helping Communities"
Global climate change, poverty persistence, and continuing biodiversity loss (especially in tropical forests), undermine the environment and community livelihoods. In fact, about a quarter of worldwide CO2 emissions is caused by changes in land use, especially deforestation. To tackle those pressing challenges in a coherent way, the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Project Design Standards (CCB Standards) were designed to fight global warming while at the same time conserve biodiversity and help foster sustainable community livelihoods.
Released in May this year by the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), the CCB Standards evaluate land-based carbon mitigation projects in the early stages of development and foster the integration of best-practice and multiple-benefit approaches into project design and evolution. CCBA manager Mr. John O. Niles: “We hope these standards help investors select integrated climate change projects that deliver real community and biodiversity co-benefits. Most investors don’t want to support monoculture carbon farms that could backfire for social or environmental reasons.”
The CCB Standards:
Identify projects that simultaneously address climate change, support local communities and conserve biodiversity.
Promote excellence and innovation in project design.
Can help mitigate risk for investors and increase funding opportunities for project developers.
To earn certification, a project must satisfy minimum requirements for each distinguished category:
Climate Change: the climate standards identify a variety of factors to quantify the amount of carbon emissions reduced or absorbed by land-based projects including baselines, additionality, leakage, monitoring and the permanence of the climate benefit.
Community: the community standards identify land-based carbon projects that involve local communities in the design and operation of land management projects and produce real and verifiable benefits for project communities.
Biodiversity: the biodiversity standards identify projects that enhance landscape management by restoring and/or maintaining local plant and animal species populations, their associated genetic variability, and their habitats, restoring and/or maintaining biological connectivity, and conserving or enhancing water resources.
Being a multi-stakeholder initiative - leading research institutions including the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE - Costa Rica), the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF - Kenya) and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR - Indonesia) served as final editors for the CCB Standards - the Standards are widely supported by private businesses and governments. For example, China’s State Forestry Administration adopted the Standards to guide the development of new CDM forestry projects (see Box 1).
Mr Niles: “According to Benoit Bosquet of the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund, several BioCarbon Fund projects have been shown to meet the CCB Standards. They recognise the importance of the CCB Standards to develop the carbon market for land use projects.”
According to Mr Niles, an anticipated US $50 million worth of projects will be using the Standards by the end of the year. Furthermore, he noted that the CCB Standards can be used in all types of forest/climate change projects, not only those approved by the Kyoto Protocol. For instance, forest conservation projects, which the Kyoto Protocol does not allow, can apply for CCB certification. If a particular project meets all the requirements of the CCB Standards and demonstrates compelling climate, community and biodiversity benefits, the project would receive approval. Ultimately, Niles hopes that the Standards will bring credibility to high-quality forestry projects and help multiple-benefit projects attract support.
Discussion Platform in JIQ Issue April 2005
Mr Jason Anderson on Efficiency Standards
Discussion Platform in JIQ Issue December 2004
Mr Wytze van der Gaast and Mr Joris Laseur on Unilateral CDM
Discussion Platform in JIQ Issue October 2004
Mr Donald Goldberg and Mr Kevin Baumert on Action Targets
Mr Andreas Oberheitmann and Mr Manuel Frondel on CDM in China
Discussion Platform in previous JIQ Issues
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