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The Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF) is a sub-national collaborative agreement between 35 states and provinces from Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Spain, and the United States. The agreement is designed to support jurisdictional approaches to low emissions rural development and reduced emissions from deforestation and land use (REDD+), specifically through performance-based payment schemes and national or state-based greenhouse gas (GHG) compliance regimes.

The agreement was initiated by former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on November 18, 2008 at the Governors’ Climate Change Summit in Los Angeles, California. At this summit the U.S. states of California, Illinois, and Wisconsin, the Brazilian states of Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Pará, and the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and Papua signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) supporting coopertion on a number of issues related to climate policy, financing, technological cooperation, and research. These MOUs also called for the creation of a Joint Action Plan to provide a framework for implementing the MOUs in the forest section.

Controversy
Greenpeace has accused the GCF of being more focused on creating sub-national REDD+ offsets for large industrial polluters in California than on promoting and adopting effective, people-centered forest protection policies among its members in developing countries.


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that promote sub-national approaches to REDD+.8 GCF member states have the opportunity and responsibility to address the major industrial drivers of forest destruction, and the GCF is well positioned to play an important role in convening and advising sub-national governments essential to the effort to halt deforestation.

This current preoccupation on sub-national REDD+ offset schemes9 risks wasting finite resources on a policy mechanism that will not deliver real benefits for the climate, forests or people – and could even make matters worse. 10

The GCF seeks to advance jurisdictional programs designed to promote low emissions rural development and reduced emissions from deforestation and land use (REDD+) and link these activities with emerging greenhouse gas (GHG) compliance regimes and other pay-for-performance opportunities. More than 25% of the world’s tropical forests are in GCF states and provinces, including more than 75% of Brazil’s and more than half of Indonesia’s. The GCF includes states and provinces that are leading the way in building comprehensive, jurisdiction-wide approaches to low emissions development and REDD+ as well as the only jurisdiction in the world (California) that is considering provisions that would recognize offsets from REDD+ as part of its GHG compliance system.

The GCF focuses on all aspects of the effort to reduce emissions from deforestation and establish lasting frameworks for low emissions development. It facilitates the exchange of experiences and lessons learned across leading states and provinces; synchronizes efforts across these jurisdictions to develop policies and programs that provide realistic pathways to forest-maintaining rural development; supports processes for multi-stakeholder participation and engagement; and seeks financing for jurisdictional programs from a range of sources, including pay-for-performance public finance, emerging carbon markets, and ongoing efforts to de-carbonize agro-food supply chains.

The overarching rationale of the GCF is that any successful effort to address the complex relationship between forests, land use, and climate change requires multiple efforts at multiple levels of governance, and that state and provincial governments, together with their civil society partners, are among the most important actors in building viable programs for low emissions rural development. The GCF was therefore conceived as an effort to leverage the fact that certain states and provinces around the world are in a position to be early movers in the effort to build robust jurisdictional programs for REDD+ and low emissions development, thereby bolstering overall momentum for the issue and enhancing national and international efforts to demonstrate how this can work in practice.

GCF History

The parties agreed to focus on the MOU forest sector provisions, with an overall objective of promoting technical cooperation and capacity building. Another primary objective was the development of recommendations for policymakers and regulatory authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere that are considering whether and how to incorporate reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and sequestrations from other international forest carbon activities into their emerging GHG compliance systems.

The MOUs expressly call for a Joint Action Plan to guide implementation efforts. Accordingly, a Joint Action Plan was developed that provides a framework and recommendations for implementing the MOU forest sector provisions during 2009-2010. A draft of the Joint Action Plan was presented for formal adoption by the MOU states and provinces at their first follow-up meeting in Belém, Pará on June 18-19, 2009. At the meeting in Belém, the MOU states and provinces made a number of important decisions regarding the MOU implementation effort, which are reflected in the Joint Action Plan.

The forest sector activities proposed in the MOUs and the Joint Action Plan represented the first effort (at any level of governance) to move into what might be called the “proof of concept” stage in the ongoing effort to bring REDD into existing and emerging GHG compliance regimes. As such, the MOU implementation effort carried global significance as a signal to other governmental entities and to the broader climate policy community that incorporating REDD is achievable. It also highlighted the fact that there will be a meaningful process of transnational cooperation among the MOU states and provinces to develop and implement workable frameworks and mechanisms for generating compliance-grade assets from REDD and other forest carbon activities in tropical forest jurisdictions. This process of integrating these assets will benefit existing and emerging compliance regimes in the United States and elsewhere.

The Joint Action Plan identified three primary objectives for 2009-2010. The first objective was to establish the Governors’ Climate & Forests Task Force (GCF) as the primary body responsible for developing recommendations for implementing the MOU forest sector provisions. As approved at the meeting in Belém, the GCF is composed of representatives from each of the MOU states/provinces, (now known as founding members of the GCF) with an annual rotating chairmanship, and is responsible for making executive decisions regarding implementation of the MOU forest sector provisions. The second objective was to establish a process for nongovernmental organization (NGO) and other stakeholder participation in the MOU implementation efforts, which also was accomplished in Belém. This process included joint meetings between the GCF and NGOs/stakeholders and NGO participation in the three working groups established in Belém to focus on key substantive areas of the MOU forest sector provisions. The third objective was to develop recommendations for implementing the MOU forest sector provisions, focusing on these same three areas:

Project-level standards and criteria for REDD activities, which included a Protocol Assessment Report; Forest carbon accounting frameworks and coordination mechanisms, and the eventual integration of sub-national baselines and targets with project-based activities; and Needs assessment, including technical, legal, institutional, and financial needs in the MOU states and provinces for moving toward compliance-grade REDD activities.
 * As of 2011, Wisconsin is no longer a GCF member. View current member list here.