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The BioCarbon Fund has signed emissions reduction purchaseagreements (carbon offset purchase agreements) with19 projects, originally for a total of $26 million. Focusingon poor and rural communities, the fund’s first tranche is25 percent invested in Africa. This is a far higher proportionthan the African share of other carbon funds at the Bank orof the CDM as a whole. In its first phase, the fund investedheavily in plantations and community reforestation (representing34 and 31 percent of the technical distribution ofthe portfolio, respectively), in addition to other activitiessuch as environmental restoration, assisted regeneration,and agroforestry.The Fund has struggled at the project level with implementationissues that are also encountered in the World Bank’sforest operations. However, it has built a comprehensivemonitoring system, allowing closer scrutiny of performancethan is possible for many noncarbon projects. Asof June 2009, 12 of 19 tranche 1 projects were expected todeliver less than half of contracted emissions reductions.In five of the projects, the contracted amount had alreadybeen revised downward.The BioCarbon Fund has underdeliveredcarbon reductions.There are several reasons for underdelivery. In Costa Ricaand Honduras, suitable CDM-eligible land was grosslyoverestimated, and carbon payments were not competitivewith other land uses; thus, these projects were scaledback by 80 percent or more. Inadequate up-front financingconstrained planting area in several projects. The projectimplementer’s capacity has been low in several cases,one factor behind low seedling survival rates in some projects.Unexpectedly bad weather has hampered projects inChina and Kenya.Given these risks, the Bank has increased supervision totry to improve expected delivery from the portfolio. Butaverage supervision budgets for these projects alreadyexceed the average for the PCF, which has much largerprojects.Preliminary reports show success in the Humbo AssistedNatural Regeneration Project in Ethiopia, the firstlarge-scale African forestry project to be registered withthe CDM. This project has adapted techniques demonstratedin West Africa to promote natural regenerationof woodlands and has restored more than 2,700 hectaresof degraded land. The regeneration project has reportedlyresulted in increased production of honey, fruit, andfodder. Further study is needed to assess the economicsof the project: the labor costs, the impacts on income,and the generation of local hydrological and biodiversitybenefits.The Forest Carbon Partnership Facilityis designed to pilot approaches that mightbe used in a future REDD regime.A follow-on to the BioCarbon Fund, the Forest CarbonPartnership Facility is designed to pilot approaches thatmight be used in a future REDD regime. It has supportedthe development of readiness plans, broadly outlining plansfor accomplishing and measuring deforestation reduction,in 37 forested countries. It will eventually purchase emissionsreductions from countries with approved plans. Investmentsto implement the plans will be funded via theClimate Investment Fund, a separate facility.Protected areasThe World Bank, combined with finance from GEF,has made a significant contribution to creating andstrengthening protected areas worldwide. According to theGEF Secretariat, GEF assistance—since it began operationsin 1991—has supported more than 1,600 protected areascovering 360 million hectares (GEF 2009). Protectedareas now cover more than a quarter of the remainingtropical forest, an area equivalent to Argentina and Boliviacombined (Nelson and Chomitz 2009).The World Bank, together with GEF, hasmade a significant contribution to thecreation and strengthening of protectedareas worldwide.This review identified a population of 114 World Bankprotected area projects, approved between 1988 and 2000,that are located in humid tropical forests. (With highdeforestation rates and high biomass, these forests accountmost forest carbon emissions.) Seventy-four percent ofthese projects have been rated satisfactory by IEG (receivingan outcome rating of moderately satisfactory or higher);however, these ratings do not necessarily reflect the effectivenessof the protected area sited, because the protectedarea in many cases is a component of a larger project. Likewise,although only 56 percent of this portfolio was ratedsustainable (likely or highly likely or an equivalent thereof),these risk ratings are composite ratings affecting the projectas a whole.In fact, despite 20 years of effort in creating protected areas,systematic information is lacking on their impact on biodiversity,on carbon storage, and on the welfare of peoplewho live in and around them. Hence, there is also no reliableinformation on what external and internal factors areconducive to positive impacts.56 | Climate Change and the World Bank Group
After 20 years of effort, systematicinformation is still lacking on the impactof protected areas on biodiversity, carbonstorage, and the welfare of forest-dependentpeople.Limited information is available from the Bank’s WorldWildlife Fund Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool,a simple checklist that describes management elementsbut lacks outcome measures. For projects financed partlyor fully with GEF funding, the GEF Secretariat requirestracking reports at inception, mid-term, and completion.Compliance with the latter two submissions is imperfect,and the Bank does not compile Management EffectivenessTracking Tool reports from its projects. The latest overallevaluation of the GEF (GEF Evaluation Office 2010), recognizedthe limitation of the tool and called for greaterreinforcement of it by including indicators for progress towardimpact and integrating these systems into the overallresults based management system of the fifth replenishmentof the GEF.IEG reviewed 34 protected area projects in forest ecosystems(approved between fiscal 2006 and 2008) for thisstudy and found severe limitations in monitoring. Onlysix of the projects included indicators that could track thefinancial sustainability of the targeted protected area—indicators such as revenue generation, park income, personnelbudgets, or fund-related information. And onlytwo projects included baseline measurements of vegetationcover and species count, although quantitative targets(usually in percent terms) for increased cover and greaterspecies resilience are often targets set in protected areaprojects.In the absence of good information, controversy persistsabout the effectiveness of protected areas. Some derideprotected areas as ineffectual “paper parks.” Others fear,to the contrary, that these areas are too effective, excludinglocal people from access to land and forest resources.As part of this evaluation, Nelson and Chomitz (2009)sought to fill the evaluation gap by assessing the globalimpact of all pre-2000 tropical forest protected areas ondeforestation over 2000–08. They used spatial data on thelocation of protected areas and of forest fires, an indicatorof deforestation, and controlled for potentially confoundinginfluences such as terrain and remoteness.Protected areas have been effective inreducing tropical deforestation, especiallywhere sustainable use is permitted;indigenous areas have been even moreeffective.They found that protected areas were on average effective inreducing deforestation (table 4.1). Multiple-use protectedareas—those that permitted some forms of sustainable useby local populations—were at least as effective as strictlyprotected areas. Areas that had been returned to indigenouscontrol were most effective of all. Similar results were foundin a sample restricted to World Bank-supported projects.These effects have been obscured in studies which did notallow for the possibility that some protected areas are preferentiallysited in regions of low deforestation pressure(because there are no politically powerful claimants on theland) or high pressure (because of the perceived importanceof conservation).In Costa Rica and Thailand, protected areashave reduced poverty rates.A recent study (Andam and others 2010) that also usedcontrolled comparisons shows that protected areas havereduced local poverty rates in Costa Rica and Thailand.Again, this impact had been obscured by the tendency forprotected areas to be located in impoverished regions.Table 4.1Impact of Protected Areas in Tropical Forests on Forest Fire IncidenceArea Mean fire incidence Mean reduction fromstrict protected areasMean reduction frommulti-use protected areasMean reduction fromindigenous areasLatin America and the Caribbean 7.4 2.7–4.3 4.8–6.4 16.3–16.53.8–7.7 6.2–7.5 12.7–12.8Africa 6.1 1.0–1.3 (0.1)–3.0 Not applicable4.4–4.5 Not calculatedAsia 5.5 1.7–2.0 4.3–5.9 Not applicable2.9–3.1 6.7–5.1Source: Nelson and Chomitz 2009.Note: Table reports percentage point reduction in forest fire incidence, a proxy for deforestation over the entire period 2000–08. Figures in italicsare for protected areas established 1990–2000; in plain text, all pre-2000 protected areas.Beyond Energy: Low-Carbon Paths in Cities and Forests | 57
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Phase II: The Challenge of Low-Carb
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CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE WORLD BANK G
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Table of ContentsAbbreviations . .
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Figures1.1 GHG Emissions by Sector
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AcknowledgmentsThe report was prepa
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Executive SummaryUnabated, climate
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esettlement plans has been ineffect
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of some technologies, such as landf
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Scale up high-impact investmentsEne
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should have been strengthened in th
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Major monitorable IEGrecommendation
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Major monitorable IEGrecommendation
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Chairman’s Summary: Committee onD
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most places. Before we get there, w
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non-Annex I countries. The World Ba
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attention. In a couple of decades,
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GlossaryAdditionalityBankabilityBas
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Joint ImplementationA mechanism und
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Chapter 1evALuAtiOn HiGHLiGHts• T
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of interventions, from technical as
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Page 45 and 46: Table 1.1 Map of the EvaluationSect
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Page 49 and 50: Table 2.2Evaluated World Bank Renew
Page 51 and 52: Figure 2.2Breakdown of 2003-08 Low-
Page 53 and 54: Table 2.4 Commitments to Grid-Conne
Page 55 and 56: Box 2.1The Economics of Grid-Connec
Page 57 and 58: on average (Iyadomi 2010). (Reducti
Page 59 and 60: and industrial policy. An increasin
Page 61 and 62: Table 2.6Hydropower Investments by
Page 63 and 64: costs for remaining unelectrified a
Page 65 and 66: World Bank experienceTwo factors ac
Page 67: Box 2.5On-Grid and Off-Grid Renewab
Page 70 and 71: Energy EfficiencyThe first phase in
Page 72 and 73: Box 3.1ESCOs and Energy Performance
Page 74 and 75: have had limited causal impact on t
Page 76 and 77: measurement of achieved economic re
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Page 83 and 84: Chapter 4eVAluATioN HigHligHTS• B
Page 85 and 86: The WBG urban transport portfolio (
Page 87 and 88: y conventional transport systems, i
Page 89 and 90: include the forest carbon projects
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Page 97 and 98: Chapter 5EVALuATioN HigHLigHTS• O
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Page 101 and 102: technologies could accelerate diffu
Page 103 and 104: A second issue, inherent to any adv
Page 105 and 106: goal of promoting wind turbine impr
Page 107 and 108: ConclusionsThe WBG’s efforts to p
Page 109 and 110: Table 5.1Carbon Funds at the World
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Page 113 and 114: Impacts on technology transferThe 2
Page 115 and 116: Chapter 6Photo by Martin Wright/Ash
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Page 121 and 122: Table 6.1Summary of Sectoral Findin
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Page 125 and 126: Appendix ARenewable Energy Tables a
Page 127 and 128: Table A.4Grid-Based Biomass/Biogass
Page 129 and 130: Table A.5 (continued)Negative examp
Page 131 and 132: Figure A.4A. Hydro/biomass capacity
Page 133 and 134: Appendix bWorld Bank Experience wit
Page 135 and 136: Table C.2Completed Low-Carbon Energ
Page 137 and 138: TAble C.4Reviewed energy efficiency
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Table F.2GHG objectiveModeNumber of
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IEG eliminated a few cases of doubl
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Table H.1Project andlocationBioener
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Appendix ICarbon and Economic Retur
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Appendix JRecent WBG Developments i
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y providing value to standing fores
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never had an explicit corporate str
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overnight. The Bank can provide ass
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Chapter 51. From the chief economis
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Hartshorn, G., P. Ferraro, and B. S
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______. 2007. World Development Ind
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IEG PublicationsAnalyzing the Effec
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