Copenhagen Conundrum 3: Deforestation and REDD

Posted on 14. Dec, 2009 by Ross in Climate Change, Policy News, South America

The Copenhagen Conference is all about carbon reduction. Reducing industrial carbon emissions and reducing economic carbon intensity tends to gain the mainstream attention for the impact that it may have on the quality of life of Westerners, but one of the main sources of man-made carbon emissions is not from the developed world but the developing world instead, and getting a handle on it will entail greater curbs on the potential of developing nations to expand their economies and raise their living standards.

Deforestation represents around 17% of all carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. Whether it is the slashing and burning of rainforest to clear space for farmland, exposing areas for mining purposes or the clearing of mature forest for commercial tree crops, the loss of forests not only releases the carbon stored in the trees back into the atmosphere but drastically reduces the ability of the land to absorb more carbon dioxide in the future.

As a result, the world’s most valuable carbon sinks are being destroyed at an alarming rate at a time when we are searching for more ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

So what does Copenhagen plan to do about it? One of the conference’s most controversial proposals is the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) scheme, whereby governments, companies or forest owners are financially rewarded for retaining their trees instead of cutting them down.

The scheme is controversial on a number of levels. It would be financed by carbon trading, enabling developed nations to offset their own emissions against the forests, absolving them of taking effective carbon reduction strategies such as adoption of renewable energy and the widespread promotion of energy efficiency. Offsetting is also far from cost-effective: according to latest research, only 30% of the money spent on carbon offsets is actually spent on the project itself. The other 70% gets grabbed by banks, shareholders, governments and carbon marketeers.

The inclusion of REDD into carbon-trading models, however, is a key part of the more carbon-lazy developed nations. Both the USA and Australia see REDD as a vital component of making their national cap-and-trade schemes work, reflecting the slow response of commerce and industry in those countries to respond to the climate challenge. Without market-finance of REDD, it is hard to see where else the funds to finance the scheme would come from, especially with the developing world demanding financial assistance in both avoiding and mitigating climate change domestically too.

The scheme also makes no provision for how indigenous people could be affected by the scheme. Whether the rights of local tribes and small-holders are respected by nations and companies seeking to profit from foreign money is not dealt with by previous draft texts, and the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have previously opposed provisions to protect indigenous rights as part of the REDD framework.

A recent legal finding cleared the way for indigenous people to gain carbon-trading rights under REDD, but such opinions has yet to be tested in court. Meanwhile, despite making strong carbon reduction pledges in the run-up to the Copenhagen, Brazil’s President Lula this week announced an amnesty for illegal loggers in the Amazonian rainforest. Although apparently sanctioning further destruction, the move is more of a reflection on the lack of enforcement officers to pursue illegal loggers: Lula will be hoping to place pressure on Western governments to help finance the police operation needed to make REDD more effective.

As with everything at Copenhagen, there is a large amount of disagreement on the structure of the REDD scheme. Around 20 different draft proposals have been tabled by different nations, but the one with the most momentum seems to be the Norway-Brazil version which also drew public support from US President Barak Obama. However, concern is mounting over Brazil’s insistence that REDD should be voluntary, and should not be aiming to achieve specific targets. The EU, by contrast, wants REDD to produce a 50% drop in deforestation rates by 2020, arguing that without targets REDD becomes toothless and pointless.

There is also concern that at this stage in the negotiations there is still no provision for peat soils, which account for 6% of the world’s emissions and are a key component of some countries’ carbon reduction strategies, including highly polluting nations like Indonesia. If peat soils are excluded from REDD there is little financial incentive to reduce emissions from them, removing a huge opportunity to realise decent emission reductions.

Image by Ross Tucknott