Does Collective Action Sequester Carbon? Evidence from the Nepal Community Forestry Program

Highlights • Presumed open access forests have as little as 34% of those under collective action. • No evidence that Community Forestry Programme forests store more carbon .• Carbon from collective action not conditional on Community Forestry Programme

Valuing lives equally: Defensible premise or unwarranted compromise?

Value of statistical life, Valuing lives equally, J17,

National and Sub-national Policies and Institutions

Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), there has been a marked increase in national policies and legislation on climate change, however, these policies, taken together, have not yet achieved a substantial deviation in emissions from the past trend. Many baseline scenarios (those without additional policies to reduce emissions) show GHG concentrations that exceed 1000 ppm CO2eq by 2100, which is far from a concentration with a likely probability of maintaining temperature increases below 2 °C this century. Mitigation scenarios suggest that a wide range of environmentally effective policies could be enacted that would be consistent with such goals. This chapter assesses national and subnational policies and institutions to mitigate climate change in this context. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of various mitigation policy instruments and policy packages and how they may interact either positively or negatively. Sector-specific policies are assessed in greater detail in the individual sector chapters (7–12)

Technical Summary

�Mitigation�, in the context of climate change, is a human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs). One of the central messages from Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is that the consequences of unchecked climate change for humans and natural ecosystems are already apparent and increasing. The most vulnerable systems are already experiencing adverse effects. Past GHG emissions have already put the planet on a track for substantial further changes in climate, and while there are many uncertainties in factors such as the sensitivity of the climate system many scenarios lead to substantial climate impacts, including direct harms to human and ecological well-being that exceed the ability of those systems to adapt fully. Because mitigation is intended to reduce the harmful effects of climate change, it is part of a broader policy framework that also includes adaptation to climate impacts. Mitigation, together with adaptation to climate change, contributes to the objective expressed in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to stabilize �greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system [�] within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt [�] to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner�. However, Article 2 is hard to interpret, as concepts such as �dangerous� and �sustainable� have different meanings in different decision contexts (see Box TS.1). Moreover, natural science is unable to predict precisely the response of the climate system to rising GHG concentrations nor fully understand the harm it will impose on individuals, societies, and ecosystems. Article 2 requires that societies balance a variety of considerations�some rooted in the impacts of climate change itself and others in the potential costs of mitigation and adaptation