The meeting of the Subsidiary Board for Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA) in Bonn, June 2015, was a long-awaited breakthrough for REDD+. After almost ten years of negotiations, all methodological and technical guidance on REDD+ was completed. The clarification of the only three remaining issues – safeguards guidance, non-carbon benefits (NCBs), and alternative policy approaches including joint mitigation and adaptation (JMA) – enable countries to proceed with full-scale REDD+ implementation on the ground.

REDD+ in light of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference
The overall aim of the two-week annual mid-year climate UN-Conference in Bonn was to prepare the text for the global climate agreement that is to be adopted by Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris in December 2015 and to enter into effect in 2020. Since deforestation is estimated to contribute around 17-20% to global greenhouse gas emissions, reaching an agreement on the REDD+ mechanism among the 193 UN-States manifests a great success. However, the completion of the REDD+ package was one of the few positive results and around 200 other issues remain to be solved before an overall climate agreement can be finalized in Paris. Although the REDD+ framework can be formally adopted in December, its successful continuation depends on the overall outcome on the global climate agreement, especially on the crucial item of finance.