Annual training on “Tropical forests and climate change” for AgroParisTech France

Context of the service

Since 2005, AgroParisTech has been offering a training module entitled "Tropical forests and climate change" to students in its "Environmental Management of Ecosystems and Forests (GEEFT)" and "Forest, Nature and Society" (FNS) courses. This module addresses issues related to regulated and voluntary carbon finance in the field of forestry and bioenergy, in terms of:
- Scientific: origins and impacts of climate change, climate modelling, mitigation and adaptation measures, etc.
- Technical: pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, development of Project Identification Note (PIN), Project Design Document (PDD), methodologies, carbon monitoring, etc.
- Institutional and political: international negotiations, architecture of carbon markets, European and US policies, etc.
- Commercial: performance of carbon projects, modes of action of investors, roles/responsibilities of developers, etc.
Experts from different backgrounds (CDC-Climat, CIFOR, IRD, ONFI, etc.) are asked to intervene during this module.

Services provided

Since 2011, SalvaTerra has been involved in the module "Tropical forests and climate change" and provides the following courses:
1/ Carbon markets:
- General: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement;
- Role of forests in climate change mitigation: REDD+, afforestation/reforestation projects, fuel switch, biomass energy etc. ;
- Carbon reservoirs and greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes: GHG inventory guidelines in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) sector;
- Market stratification: voluntary (VERRA, CCBS, Plan Vivo, Gold Standard, etc.) and regulatory (Clean Development Mechanism - CDM, European market - EU-ETS, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement) markets;
- Methodologies for developing carbon projects: reference scenario, additionality, land eligibility, leakage accounting, monitoring of carbon and GHG stocks, etc.
- Management and carbon project cycle: design and development, PIN, PDD, validation, registration, verification, certification, etc. ;
- Legal aspects of carbon transactions: legal nature of credits, sale (spot, future, equity investment), etc.
2/ Case studies of "0 deforestation" initiatives: yams in Guinea, cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire.
3/ Supervision of practical work for the development of carbon projects: fuel switch, industrial afforestation, restoration of degraded land, silvo-pastoralism, etc.

Summary of the service

Annual interventions in the module "Tropical forests and climate change" of the MSc "Environmental management of ecosystems and forests (GEEFT)" and "Forest, nature and society" (FNS) of AgroParisTech: Carbon markets (VCS/CCBS certifications, Gold Standard, etc., Article 6 of the Paris Agreement), and carbon projects in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses - AFOLU sector (afforestation, REDD+, fuel switch, etc.) ; Initiatives for "0 deforestation" products; Supervision of practical work in the development of carbon projects.