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Modeling Impact of Development Trajectories and a Global Agreement on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation on Congo Basin Forests by 2030

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Abstract

The Congo Basin encompasses the second largest rainforest area after the Amazon but the Congo Basin rainforest has been more preserved during the last decades with a much lower deforestation rate. At the same time, the region remains one of the least developed in the world. We use the partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM for the global agricultural, forestry and bioenergy sectors that seeks to find optimal land use options by spatially representing land qualities. We show the trade-offs between achieving agricultural growth at the expense of forests and protecting forests at the expense of agriculture development in the Congo Basin. The realization of the transportation infrastructures, which are already planned and funded, could multiply deforestation by three. In contrast, a global agreement on reduction of total emissions from deforestation could achieve important cuts in GHG emissions from deforestation in the Congo Basin. However, it could lead to substantial increases in food imports and food prices, which are in contradiction with the food security objectives.

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Abbreviations

AICD:

African Infrastructure Country Database

CAR:

Central African Republic

\(\text{ CO}_{2}\) :

Carbon dioxyde

CO\(_2\)e:

Carbon dioxyde equivalent

DRC:

Democratic Republic of Congo

EPIC:

Environmental Policy Integrated Climate model

FAO:

Food and Agriculture Organization

FRA:

Forest Resources Assessment

G4M:

Global forest model

GHG:

Greenhouse gas

GLOBIOM:

GLObal BIOsphere Management model

GT:

Giga tonne

IPCC:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Mha:

Million hectares

OFAC:

Observatory for the Forests of Central Africa

REDD+:

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the World Bank under the contract 7151363. We want to thank Carole Megevand and Loïc Braune from the World Bank and Anne Martinet from ONFI for their support. Finally, we are thankful to the participants of the two workshops organized in Douala in November 2009 and June 2010 for their precious feedbacks on the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecosystems Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    A. Mosnier, P. Havlík, M. Obersteiner, S. Fritz, I. McCallum & S. Leduc

  2. University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

    A. Mosnier & E. Schmid

  3. United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Vienna, Austria

    K. Aoki

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  1. A. Mosnier
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  2. P. Havlík
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Correspondence to A. Mosnier.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 2, 3, 4 and see Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8.

Fig. 5
figure 5

Population density in the Congo Basin in 2000 (a) and 2030 (b) in inhabitant/km\(^2\) Source Grübler et al. 2007

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Fig. 6
figure 6

Evolution of crop price index in the Congo Basin and in the Rest of the World without RED

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Fig. 7
figure 7

Evolution of crop price index in the Congo Basin and in the Rest of the World with RED when Congo Basin participates in a global RED agreement and when Congo basin doesn’t participate (REDL)

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Fig. 8
figure 8

Main imports in the Congo Basin according to different global RED targets deforestation emissions targets

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Table 2 Regions and countries in GLOBIOM
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Table 3 Products in GLOBIOM
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Table 4 Fuel wood consumption in the Congo Basin countries in 2000
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Mosnier, A., Havlík, P., Obersteiner, M. et al. Modeling Impact of Development Trajectories and a Global Agreement on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation on Congo Basin Forests by 2030. Environ Resource Econ 57, 505–525 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-012-9618-7

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