Out of the Woods

The report finds that REDD is a low-cost climate mitigation strategy, with $20 billion in annual funding potentially reducing 2020 deforestation emissions by 50%. However, it argues that political and institutional constraints—specifically the capacity and interest of major emitters like Brazil and Indonesia—will likely delay the implementation of a comprehensive global system until 2020 or later.

• REDD is a highly cost-effective approach to emissions reduction compared to energy sector cuts in industrialized nations. Even under pessimistic assessments that include implementation, transaction, administration, and stabilization costs, the cost per ton of reducing current carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation by half is less than one-third of mid-2008 capped carbon market prices.
• Conservative estimates based on global economic models suggest that annual funding levels could achieve significant emissions reductions by 2020: $5 billion could reduce emissions by over 20 percent, $20 billion could achieve a 50 percent reduction, and $50 billion could result in a 66 percent drop.
• The potential of a global REDD system is heavily dependent on a small number of countries due to the skewed distribution of emissions. Indonesia and Brazil alone account for nearly half of all emissions from tropical deforestation, while the top 16 countries are responsible for nearly six-sevenths of all such emissions.
• Political and institutional constraints, categorized as 'capacity' (technical and governance ability) and 'interest' (willingness to participate), will slow the rollout of REDD. The report predicts that a system covering three-fourths or more of deforestation emissions is unlikely to exist until 2020 or later, and it is improbable that a full global system will be in place by the start of the post-2012 period.
• There is significant variation in cost estimates depending on the methodology used. Regional empirical estimates provide the lowest costs (mean of $2.51/tCO2), followed by area-based estimates like the Stern Review, while global partial equilibrium models provide the most conservative (highest) cost estimates.
• Beyond opportunity costs, additional expenses for transactions, implementation, and administration are estimated to total approximately $1.00/tCO2. Stabilization costs for high-forest-low-deforestation (HFLD) countries are handled separately, with one estimate suggesting $630 million annually to cover 10 such countries to prevent 'international leakage'.
• The report analyzes the proposed Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, estimating that its allocation of 2.5 percent of allowance revenues for REDD (approximately $2.57 billion after stabilization costs) could reduce 2020 emissions by an amount equal to 9 percent of total United States emissions in 1990.

APA

Boucher, D. (2008). Out of the Woods. Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/UCS-REDD-Boucher-report.pdf

Chicago

Boucher, Doug. Out of the Woods. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/UCS-REDD-Boucher-report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Boucher |first1=Doug |title=Out of the Woods |publisher=Union of Concerned Scientists |date=December 2008 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/UCS-REDD-Boucher-report.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{boucher2008out, author = {Boucher, Doug}, title = {{Out of the Woods}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2008}, month = dec, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/UCS-REDD-Boucher-report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }