CLIMATE TALKS CLOSE TO WORKING OUT FORESTRY DEAL
12.15.07 - Leído 56 veces. Enviar esta notaGde Anugrah Arka
Delegates at climate talks in Bali are close to agreeing guidelines for a pay-and-preserve scheme for forests under a future deal to fight global warming, Indonesia’s foreign minister said on Thursday
NUSA DUA, Indonesia; December 15, 2007.- Under the scheme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD), preservation of forests could become a tradeable commodity with the potential to earn poor nations billions of dollars from trading carbon credits.
Scientists say deforestation in the tropics is responsible for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and preserving what’s left of them is crucial because they soak up enormous amounts of the gas.
CO2 is blamed for the bulk of global warming that the UN Climate Panel says will trigger rising seas, rapid melting of glaciers and more droughts, floods and intense storms.
“In the meeting this morning, it was very clear that there was enthusiasm from developed countries on the importance of forests in the context of climate change,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told reporters.
“Developed countries and countries with large forest areas agreed to formulate a world map as part of the cooperation, involving not just governments, but also institutions like universities and research bodies.”
Curbing deforestation has been a top issue for the thousands of delegates at Bali because the Kyoto Protocol, the existing UN climate pact, does not include schemes that reward developing nations for preserving tropical rainforests.
LAND USE
At its simplest, the REDD scheme would allow carbon credits to be issued to qualifying developing nations. Rich nations buy these credits to offset their emissions at home.
The unresolved issue centres on the question whether to put future talks on deforestation in a wider context, which includes other types of land use, a proposal backed by the United States and opposed by most developing nations, an Indonesian forestry official said.
The official told Reuters the proposal could take away the focus from forests, complicate the scheme and further stall its implementation.
So far, the Bali meeting has agreed to encourage individual countries to run a series of projects to help them prepare for REDD while agreeing to study the issue further.
The World Bank has already launched plans for a US$300 million fund to fend off global warming by preserving forests, which includes a US$100 million “readiness” fund to give grants to around 20 countries to prepare them for large-scale forest protection schemes.
Grants will fund projects including surveys of current forest assets, monitoring systems and tightening governance.
A second US$200 million “carbon finance mechanism” will allow some of these countries to run pilot programmes earning credits for curbing deforestation.
Indonesia, a keen supporter of REDD, is among the world’s top three greenhouse gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires, according to a report earlier this year sponsored by the World Bank and Britain’s development arm.
Indonesia has a total forest area of more than 225 million acres (91 million hectares), or about 10 percent of the world’s remaining tropical forests, according to rainforestweb.org, a portal on rainforests (www.rainforestweb.org).
Indigenous People Fear Double Climate Hit
Emma Graham-Harrison
Groups that have been custodians of forests for generations fear projects will undermine their ownership of traditional areas, enforce land-grabs by corrupt regimes, encourage more theft, undermine biodiversity and exclude them from management.
And with UN talks in Bali close to agreeing guidelines for a pay-and-preserve scheme to tackle deforestation, they warned they are not strong enough to fight the financial interests of the multi-billion dollar carbon trading industry.
“There is concern about the developed world stealing our forests,” Fiu Elisana Mata’ese, head of Samoan group the O’le Siosiomaga Society, told Reuters.
“This is an attempt to globally own the resources that are ours. We are concerned indigenous people who have managed forests for generations will not have a say in how they are run.”
Under the scheme, called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD), preservation of forests could become a tradeable commodity with the potential to earn poor nations billions of dollars from trading carbon credits.
Scientists say deforestation in the tropics and sub-tropics is responsible for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and preserving what is left of them is crucial because they soak up enormous amounts of the gas.
Many environmentalists hope it could also create refuges for threatened animals and plants. But indigenous groups fear that they will be shut out from ancestral lands by the strict regulations and monitoring needed to earn credits.
Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of Global Forest Coalition, said small projects following a similar model to generate credits for people and firms looking to voluntarily offset emissions have already highlighted problems.
They have cemented indigenous groups’ exclusion from the lands taken by force and sold on for REDD programmes, she said.
They have also encouraged new land grabs by groups looking to cash in on healthy forests and hit diversity because companies wanting a quick buck create vast single-species plantations of fast-growing trees.
“Indigenous people are victims of climate change and now they are going to become victims of climate change mitigation,” she said.
WORLD BANK CONCERNS
The World Bank on Tuesday launched plans for a US$300 million fund to help create pilot projects for a wider REDD scheme.
But Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, told the ceremony that indigenous people who had fought to protect the Amazon from ranchers, the Congo Basin from loggers and Indonesian forests from oil palm plantations, had to be included in the process and were still waiting for guarantees they would be.
“We, the indigenous peoples, are the ones who sacrificed life and limb to save these forests that are vital for our survival as distinct peoples and cultures,” she said.
“There is a moral and legal imperative that indigenous peoples be truly involved in designing, implementing and evaluating initiatives,” she added.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick defended the bank’s record, as the noise of protestors outside briefly broke through to the secluded hall, and said the urgent challenge of climate change meant it was important to launch the project now.
(Reuters)
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