Applying an Empirical Evaluation to the Governance Legitimacy of Carbon Offset Mechanisms on the Basis of Stakeholder Perceptions

Abstract

This chapter begins with a background to the various carbon offset mechanisms, public and private, within the climate change regime complex. It continues with a quantitative and qualitative analysis of stakeholder perceptions regarding the governance of the UN climate change negotiations on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+). Governance was evaluated by means of a series of online surveys conducted during the period 2009-2011, using the framework of principles, criteria and indicators developed by Cadman (2011) and presented in the Introduction to this volume. Respondents were selected from state (that is, governmental) and non-state (that is, non-governmental) interests and further separated by their geo-political location in either the ‘global North’ or ‘global South’. The results show that survey respondents generally found REDD+ to be inclusive but did not consider that there was the necessary capacity or resources for meaningful participation. A concluding section reviews the framework applied and comments on the nature of multistakeholder relations in contemporary global governance and REDD+ specifically.