Norway

Norway supports a REDD+ regime that focuses on deforestation and forest  degradation, but also promotes conservation, sustainable management of  forests and incentives to enhance carbon stocks. Ideally, this would evolve  over time to incorporate afforestation and reforestation, peatland, and the  entire AFOLU sector. Norway believes in principle that reference levels  should be based on historical emission data, but recognizes that for many  countries with low rates of deforestation and degradation such historical  rates would not give a sufficiently strong incentive. A future REDD+ regime  should operate at the national level in order to reduce the risk of within  country leakage, although this may require a transition from sub-national  approaches. In addition, a global reference level for future forestry and land  use sector emissions and removals should be established.

Acknowledging the different capacities in developing countries as well as  the varying rates of deforestation and degradation, Norway supports a  stepwise approach that uses differentiated incentives and policy approaches  to encourage broad participation. A combination of market- and fund-based  mechanisms is needed. Markets could be useful in mobilizing resources from  the private sector, but would be less effective for countries with low rates of  deforestation. Further, a market-based mechanism would not be relevant  for capacity-building. If a fund-based mechanism is introduced, without an  offset mechanism, it is essential that a robust and sustainable system for  mobilizing financial resources is established. Norway has proposed that the  auctioning of allowances could be used to finance a REDD+ mechanism.