Centralization of the Global REDD+ Financial Network and Implications under the New Climate Regime

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In general the article deals with a very important topic, and this analysis has not been conducted, as far as I know, and hence it can contribute to the literature on REDD+. General remarks regarding the study include: The article needs to situate its findings in the broader literature in the discussion section. It is a very descriptive paper, and hence it would be a good idea to go more in depth in how this article contributes to the existing theory and literature. Another remark is that it would be useful to come up with some concrete policy recommendations. Furthermore, the presentation of the figures could be improved (it is very hard to read it, even though the research has been conduct thoroughly). It is also important to describe the methods of the study in greater detail, as it first seemed that this article was going to be a review article. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I think it is up to the editor and authors to discuss whether Forests is a suitable journal for this kind of article. Even though I know REDD+ is all about sustainable forest management and avoiding deforestation, this study concerns more the financing mechanism behind it. Hence, would it be an idea to resubmit this paper to another journal, such as MDPI's Sustainability? However, I do not feel qualified to further discuss this, and I will leave it up to the editor and authors to decide further.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your recommendations. They have been very helpful to improve the paper. Detailed responses to your recommendation can be found in the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I was invited by the editor of Forests to review the manuscript by Kim et al. about global REDD+ finance. The authors conducted a Social Network Analysis for the identification of key actors promoting/funding REDD+ worldwide. I found the results interesting and, in my opinion, they represent a novel contribution to the REDD+ literature.

 

I felt the text needs a clear definition of REDD+ centralization/decentralization. A critical component of REDD+ financing takes place in voluntary carbon markets. These markets fund decentralized initiatives with no relation to national REDD+ programs and/or governments at any level (see West, 2016, for a discussion on the topic). More broadly, another type of forest/REDD+ decentralization refers to the transfer of power from the national government to regional/local governments. In the case of REDD+, these are often referred to as “subnational REDD+ jurisdictions.” Decentralized REDD+ activities can happen at the level of these subnational jurisdictions or outside any jurisdiction. This point needs to be clarified in the manuscript as it has a direct relation to REDD+ financing.

 

 

Additional comments:

 

Line 33: The definition provided by the authors refer only to REDD. The “+” refer to the roles of “conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.”

 

Line 34: the word “emission” is missing.

 

Line 38: Remove red dot after [1].

 

Line 39: The proper definition of REDD+ specifically refers to developing countries. Please rephrase the sentence. REDD+ stands for "reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks."

 

Line 40: “Global agreement” seems too vague. Please provide further information.

 

Line 49: You can cite the work of Angelsen for reference (Angelsen, 2017).

 

Line 106: RED was first proposed during early discussions about the Kyoto Protocol, but was left out the agreement (Tolba and Rummel-Bulska, 1996). As far as I know, it was later reintroduced in the UNFCCC/COP negotiations in 2005 (Thompson et al., 2011).

 

Line 138: It would be interesting to see in this section/Figure 1 where the countries receiving REDD+ money are in terms of phases identified by the authors (readiness, implementation, results-based finance). It also needs to be noted that separation into these phases is not straightforward. For instance, some of Brazil’s emission reductions from REDD+ have been recently recognized by the Green Climate Fund of the UNFCCC (https://www.greenclimate.fund/projects/fp100) but the country’s national REDD+ program is expected to launch in 2020. I recommend to authors to add one or two paragraphs about this caveat in the discussion section.

 

Figures: As a suggestion, it would be VERY interesting if the authors could add dollar signs to the (most important) arrows in the figures (but perhaps that would compromise visualization).

 

Figures 4-7: I suggest greying out the arrows that are “not so relevant” to improve visualization. Also, consider making the figures bigger. Forest does not have a restriction on figure size. I recommend using a whole page for each figure and increasing the font size since some of the names are virtually unreadable.

 

Figure 8: Use a y-axis break between 0.3 and 0.7 to improve visualization (it is impossible to understand what is happening).

Figure 9: Same comment. Perhaps even consider using a log transformation? (although the negative values will look a bit odd).

 

References

 

Angelsen, A., 2017. REDD+ as result-based aid: General lessons and bilateral agreements of Norway. Rev. Dev. Econ. 21, 237–264. https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12271

Thompson, M.C., Baruah, M., Carr, E.R., 2011. Seeing REDD+ as a project of environmental governance. Environ. Sci. Policy 14, 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2010.11.006

Tolba, M.K., Rummel-Bulska, I., 1996. Global Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating Environment Agreements for the World, 1973-1992. MIT Press, Cambridge.

West, T.A.P., 2016. Indigenous community benefits from a de-centralized approach to REDD+ in Brazil. Clim. Policy 16, 924–939. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2015.1058238

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your recommendations. They have been very helpful to improve the paper. Detailed responses to your recommendations can be found in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx