Clinton Climate Initiative
Measuring & Valuing Forest Carbon Emissions
The overarching development goal of the Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) program is to enhance national socio-economic development through sustainable land and natural resources management. Sustainable natural resources management has a strong and direct effect on socio-economic development. Agricultural practices have led to continuing degradation of forests and loss of tree cover. Restoring degraded forest areas will not only break this vicious cycle but will also create access to financial resources through international carbon markets.
Reliable, robust, and transparent measurement and reporting of forest carbon stocks is critical to improved forest governance. With solid information, decision-support tools to manage that information, and full transparency and accountability, communities and governments can better manage forested land. Sound carbon accounting also grants REDD+ projects access to carbon markets.
MRV Support
CCI helps countries design and build their MRV systems by providing access to data, technical assistance, and capacity building and training. CCI assists governments to develop reliable data that is delivered into affordable and centralized government systems. These systems will enable countries to estimate, report, and establish a basis for verification of its GHG emissions from the land-based sectors and will also improve decision-making in the land-based sectors. CCI helps countries build the technical base to comply with international MRV standards, and in the process creates a credible database on which to advance international agreements on deforestation. CCI also helps to ensure that critical, national-scale satellite information on forests is delivered regularly and routinely to countries that depend on it.
Providing access to data, technical assistance, and capacity building and training, CCI helps countries design and build their MRV systems in three phases:
- Design MRV systems that ensure consistent estimation of emissions and provision of information in a format easy to use for decision-making.
- Implement the first steps of forest carbon inventories to test MRV systems and to calculate volume of carbon for reporting and sale.
- Implement upgrades of MRV systems, which leads to improved accuracy, quality assurance and control, and routine operations for periodic carbon measurements and reporting.
Program Outcomes:
- Access to international climate and carbon finance
- Informed decision making on:
- Relevant national climate change response strategies
- Sustainable development and sustainable land use
- Climate smart agriculture
- Biodiversity conservation
- Livelihoods
- Food security