FORMA and fCPR: Accelerating a Performance-Based Payment System for REDD+

Reducing carbon emissions from forestclearing and degradation has become animportant part of the international climateagenda. To this end, a proposed paymentmechanism called REDD+ would transferfunding to tropical forest countries totake action: to reduce emissions fromdeforestation and land degradation(REDD) and to engage in sustainable forestmanagement and conservation and toenhance forest carbon stocks (the + part). But forests are more complex than powerplants, so it’s been more difficult to designa performance finance scheme based onquantified reductions in emissions. One ofthe biggest challenges is to design a simple,reliable system to monitor, report, and verifychanges in carbon stocks calibrated in termsof CO2 equivalent. The Center for Global Development hasdeveloped a satellite monitoring tool, calledForest Monitoring for Action, or FORMA,and a simple performance rating system,called Forest Conservation PerformanceRating (fCPR), that could potentially beused to provide a performance scorecardand an interim performance-based paymentsscheme until robust national monitoring,reporting, and verification schemes with“full carbon accounting” are in place. Thispaper briefly summarizes how the FORMAtool and the fCPR rating system could work.