REDD+: a carbon stock-flow analysis of the Brazilian Amazon municipalities

The size of forest carbon stocks and the extent of reductions in flow of net carbon emissions from forestry are key criteria for REDD+ benefit sharing and policy targeting. We perform a carbon stock-flow analysis of the 552 municipalities that make up the Brazilian Amazon forest using official data, technical procedures for estimating REDD+ emissions and removals, and fuzzy classification. We find that the municipalities held 70.2 Pg C in their forests in 2013 and were responsible for reducing the net emissions flow by 6.3 Pg CO2 from 2006 to 2013. We classify the municipalities in terms of their carbon stock-flow and identify 63 priority municipalities for REDD+ benefit sharing (those with large carbon stocks and/or high flow reductions). We assess the main national mitigation plan of REDD+ for the region and observe that it has successfully focused on the net source priority municipalities. However, the plan has not consistently focused on the net sink and large stock priority municipalities, which can lead to leakage in important carbon pools. We suggest the use of the stock-flow criteria to perform REDD+ benefit sharing among the municipalities and the inclusion of the stock-flow criteria for defining target municipalities in further revisions of the mitigation plan.