The Challenge of Low-Carbon Development - World Bank Internet ...

Dedicated bus lanes have been shown toincrease travel speeds.In Bogota, CDM validation reports showed annual CO 2savings rising from 56,000 tons of CO 2e in 2006 to 79,000in 2009. Ridership increased from 346 to 449 million. Theproportion of passengers attracted from private cars andtaxis fell from 9.8 to 6.9 percent.BRTSs offer attractive economic returns infuel and time savings, reduced congestion,and reduced air pollution.In Mexico, the $47 million project is estimated to yieldannual noncarbon savings of $15.42 million (Schipper andothers 2009). About a third is from fuel and time savings ofbus riders, and the remainder is external benefits from reducedair pollution, congestion, and fuel expenditure by others.Annual CO 2reductions were measured at 39,870 tonsof CO 2for 2007–08. At current CO 2prices, these benefitsare small relative to the local economic benefits.ConclusionsBased on limited evidence, BRTSs offer attractive economicreturns to cities as a whole in time savings, fuel savings, reducedpollution, and reduced congestion; the savings donot go directly to the implementing agency. The short-runreductions in GHG generate carbon credits that are modestin value compared to the direct local benefits. Single-lineBRTSs have little impact on overall urban CO 2emissions—for instance, the reductions in Mexico city are less than 0.25percent of urban emissions from transport (Schipper andothers 2009). In other words, these investments make a lotof sense as development interventions with CO 2cobenefits;they would never be chosen solely as means to reduce CO 2.In the medium run, there are likely to be declining returnsas the number of corridors increases within a city; but cumulativeemissions reductions for the system as a wholecould increase, to 250,000–400,000 tons of CO 2e per year.Long-term impacts could differ substantially; BRTSs couldbe a contributing component in the construction of efficientcities with low carbon footprints, if they are able to retaintheir share of passenger trips. Demand-side managementwill be an important part of such a scenario.Efficient transport planning will require a systems view forplanning and monitoring. Installation of a BRT corridorcauses ripples throughout the entire transport network aspeople change trip patterns and vehicles enter the system.Indirect impacts could magnify or counteract the corridorlevelbenefits; these need to be anticipated and tracked.Although CDM projects have the tremendous benefitof tracking ridership and fuel use, they typically do notmonitor systemwide travel patterns. This requires systemwidetravel surveys, which are expensive but informative.As the World Bank embarks on sponsoring BRTSs aroundthe world, it should take the opportunity to promote harmonizedmonitoring of impacts. The Clean TechnologyFund or other concessional funds could be used to mountregular, consistent travel surveys. This would allow correctmeasurement of impacts and could stimulate south-southsharing of experience and drawing of lessons.ForestsDeforestation accounts for roughly one-fifth to one-sixth ofhuman-caused GHG emissions. Emissions result as forestsare cleared and burned to make way for farms and ranchesand to a lesser extent from damage caused by careless loggers.Most emissions are from tropical moist forests, wheredeforestation rates are high and biomass is dense.At CO 2values of $10–$20 per ton, forests are worth muchmore as living carbon storage than as sites for farms or forcattle ranches. Forests have additional value as havens forbiodiversity, and they play a role in regulating water flows.Nevertheless, forests are cut. Where land and forest tenureis well defined, landowners face strong incentives to liquidatestanding forests (rather than patiently harvest themover rotations of 30–100 years) and replace them with cashcrops, cattle, or fast-growing trees. In many forests, tenureis poorly defined, and people may use deforestation as amechanism to claim land as the approach of roads or marketscauses it to appreciate in value (Chomitz 2007).Forests can be worth more as living carbonstorage than as sites for farms or cattle ranches.In principle, landholders or nations would reduce deforestationif they were compensated for the local and globalbenefits their forests provide. This has motivated the REDDagenda, an element of ongoing negotiations on the internationalclimate regime. REDD seeks to mobilize global fundsto reward developing countries for reducing emissions.Countries would use these funds to implement programsand policies to promote sustainable land use.How, exactly, would that work? Although the forest carbonagenda is new, the forest conservation and managementagenda is not, and World Bank experience provides someparallels for potential future REDD actions.After briefly reviewing the World Bank forest strategy andportfolio, this section reviews three kinds of projects thatmay offer lessons for REDD. By far the largest set of projectswith an explicit goal of forest conservation is protected areaprojects. A novel approach that closely resembles REDD ispayment for environmental services, a category of projects that52 | Climate Change and the World Bank Group