Abstract
REDD+ remains a critical tool for dealing with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Like other global-level initiatives, REDD+ has strong supporters and critics. Despite the division over its merits, little has been done to understand how a national-level audience responds to the program’s arrival in a partner country and which players drive a program’s implementation. Here we coded the archives of two Guyanese newspapers to identify the policy actors, institutions, and concepts (players) that drove the implementation of the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). Two groups of players—super-key and key—dictated the direction of the LCDS implementation. Super-key players used the state-owned media to advocate their positions, while players who felt they would be punished by the LCDS implementation published their positions in the privately-owned media. Therefore, like responses to other global-level environmental challenges, views around the LCDS were divided.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Guyana Chronicle and Stabroek News who made their archives available online. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers who provided invaluable comments that strengthened this paper. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Cummings, A.R., Martin, S.K. Identifying the powers, players, and emotions associated with REDD+ implementation: The case of Guyana’s LCDS. Ambio 49, 1241–1255 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01253-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01253-3