The REDD Scheme to Curb Deforestation: A Well-designed System of Incentives?

Charles Figuieres, Solenn Leplay, Estelle Midler and Sophie Thoyer ()

Strategic Behavior and the Environment, 2012, vol. 2, issue 3, 239-257

Abstract: The need for a global agreement to the problem of tropical deforestation has led to the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) scheme, which proposes that the developed countries pay developing countries for CO 2 emissions saved through avoided deforestation and forest degradation. The remaining issue is specifying the rules defining payments to countries that reduce their deforestation levels. This article develops a game-theoretic bargaining model, simulating the on-going negotiation process which is currently taking place within the Convention on Climate Change, after the Copenhagen agreement of December 2009. It shows that the conditions under which developing countries are left to bargain over the allocation of the global forest fundmay lead to an ineffective system of incentives. Below a given level of contributions from the North, the mechanism fails to curb deforestation. Beyond this level, it induces perverse effects: the larger the North's contribution, the larger the deforestation decisions. Consequently, the mechanism is most effective only at a specific threshold, which, given the unobservability of countries'preferences, can only be found by a repeated "trial and error" implementation process.

Keywords: Deforestation; REDD; Bargaining; Environmental agreement; Climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q23 Q57 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/102.00000017 (application/xml)

Related works:
Working Paper: The REDD scheme to curb deforestation: A well-designed system of incentives? (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jnlsbe:102.00000017

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Strategic Behavior and the Environment from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().