Scaling-up Community Carbon Projects A roadmap - Plan Vivo

Executive Summary
Around a third of GHG emissions come
from land-use change, much of which
relates to community-level activities such
as unsustainable agricultural practices and
extraction of fuel wood. Rural
communities are in a position to have a
large impact on emissions reductions and
increasing carbon sinks, with the right
level and kind of support.
It is essential that those involved in
designing policies and financing
mechanisms to reduce GHG emissions
recognise the need for projects involving
communities, ‘community carbon’
projects. The Voluntary Carbon Market
(VCM) has afforded communities some
opportunities to access funds through
selling ‘voluntary emissions reductions’
(VERs), but in practice, the proportion of
carbon finance reaching community-led
projects is small, even though the offer of
ecosystem services and additional social
and environmental benefits is high.
This represents a missed opportunity to
address the root causes of climate change
in developing countries, and to use carbon
finance to have long-lasting effects on
land-use and livelihoods.
Key barriers to scaling-up community
carbon projects include local factors such
as poor governance and lack of social and
technical capacity of communities and
NGOs acting as intermediaries. Regional
and national factors such as lack of
coordination between projects and
governments, over-reliance on technical
support from developing countries
present challenges. Global level market
and financial challenges such as market
uncertainty, difficulties in accessing startup
funding, and the complexity of
internationally recognised methodologies
are also key barriers.
Despite these challenges, there are clear
practical actions that can be taken on all
levels to address barriers and enable
projects to meet their potential. Many of
these actions relate to better
communication of project lessons and
benefits, and better networks to facilitate
capacity building, information sharing and
access to funding and markets.
Key barriers to scaling-up community
carbon, and potential actions to address
barriers are summarised in the table
below:
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