Brazil could hold significant influence in the negotiations to reduce carbon emissions for deforestation at the U.N. climate conference in Doha, Qatar, next week, given its own achievements in reducing forest loss.

Yesterday, the country announced a 27 percent reduction from last year in the rate of deforestation, according to the national space agency, a record for the country and the latest in a progressive drop in annual deforestation rates. Brazil has reduced its rate of deforestation by 76 percent from its baseline, almost reaching its 80 percent goal by 2020.

Actions like the 2006 and 2009 moratoria on the soybean and cattle industries' expansion into forests have helped curb additional clearing of land. National and state law enforcement has increased its presence and prosecution of illegal deforesters, said Doug Boucher, director of the Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

All of this could contribute to Brazil's leadership role at this year's 18th Conference of Parties (COP 18) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. This year's climate conference could be an especially telling one for the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) process. REDD+ is a mechanism that pays landowners to keep trees standing rather than cut or burn them down.

"I think that people take [Brazil's] proposals very seriously based on their past success," said Boucher. "That reinforces their influence."

While the country's president, Dilma Rousseff, received harsh criticism this year from environmentalists for approving controversial revisions to the Forest Code, the effects on those revisions on forest loss have yet to show (ClimateWire, May 29).

Brazil's success in curbing deforestation will not place the country on a pedestal over other nations, said Fred Boltz, senior vice president for international policy at Conservation International.

But, he said in an email, "it certainly increases confidence that REDD+ can be done and that donor countries will deliver on their commitments." This confidence breeds success in negotiations, added Boltz.

Counting carbon, dollars

Since 2007, most of the work on reducing emissions from deforestation was done in the Ad-Hoc Working Group for Long-Term Cooperative Action, which will dissolve at the end of the year to make way for the Durban Platform, passed at last year's conference in Durban, South Africa.

The parties must find a way to transition the progress made last year in two areas: the creation of social and environment safeguards in REDD+-protected forests, and guidelines for establishing a nation's reference level. Reference levels are a country's emissions level in a "business as usual" deforestation scenario, upon which they must make improvements under their climate commitments.

"We have made some progress on building the technical framework, but we need specific guidelines for how countries will account for carbon, and financing is still far from adequate," said Boltz.

Perhaps one of the most important decisions to be made will be on financing REDD+. Last year, the parties agreed to officially endorse the use of markets. This was a controversial issue in years past due to some countries' skepticism toward privatizing forests. These countries, typically less-developed nations, prefer public funding from governments. Brazil was the major beneficiary of $1 billion up to 2015 from Norway to preserve the Amazon rainforest -- the majority of which lies within the country's borders.

Brazil has opposed selling credits for carbon stored in forests as offsets internationally, which would count toward countries' emissions reduction goals without drastic changes in energy use and production. The country does endorse new ideas "appropriate market-based mechanisms" that would not generate offsets, like using auctions to allocate allowances that would not be tradable.

"Brazil will say, officially, that it is opposed to using REDD as offsets," said Gustavo Silva-Chavez, a climate and forests specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund, who agreed that the country will hold significant sway in this year's REDD+ negotiations.

But the country's support for the Clean Development Mechanism, the U.N. carbon trading program, may put them at odds with a staunch position against offsets, said Silva-Chavez. The Brazilian state of Acre also signed a memorandum of understanding with California to sell offsets to the U.S. state's newly created cap-and-trade system.

Comparing apples to apples

The Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) issue is what may make the most progress forward, said Boucher. These numbers that could define how well a country is holding up commitments to cut carbon through the REDD+ process.

Following up on last year's guidelines for reference levels, negotiators will need to adopt similar MRV rules that lay the groundwork on how to quantify plant and soil carbon. Negotiators are also expected to answer questions on how often and to whom countries must report this data.

"You have to have common standards so that you are really comparing apples to apples," said Boucher, referring to reference levels.

The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA), the scientific advisory group to the conference, will open its session tomorrow in Doha and discuss the issue. SBSTA is expected to complete its methodological guidance on verification and prepare a draft decision for consideration and adoption by the end of the conference.

Although vague rules could leave room for cheating, the Environmental Defense Fund has advocated for looser, rather than strict guidelines. They are encouraging the SBSTA to guide countries to err on the side of lower, more conservative carbon-saving numbers when reporting. This, said Silva-Chavez, will allow for easier adoption.

"Guidance that comes out for REDD+ MRV will be fairly general," said Silva-Chavez. They will likely reference existing recommendations from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"There's no political appetite for very specific MRV guidelines," said Silva-Chavez. "And we don't think it's necessary."