PROSPECTS FOR a credible deal to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation – commonly known as REDD – were still unclear when the UN climate talks concluded yesterday, according to the Ecosystems Climate Alliance (ECA).
REDD is intended to help a large number of developing countries to protect their remaining rainforests and reduce the 18 to 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions attributed to deforestation, forest degradation and peatland destruction.
The latest negotiating text released on Thursday contains no provisions to monitor safeguards in developing countries that would receive funding under REDD, nor explicit language to ensure protection of intact natural forests.
A key safeguard against the conversion of natural forests to plantations, which vanished at the Bangkok talks in October, has reappeared in two options, but both are weakened and have yet to be agreed.
Other issues that remain to be resolved at next month’s Copenhagen conference include safeguards for indigenous peoples and biodiversity, and transparent governance structures. Most countries that stand to benefit have poor legal frameworks, the alliance said.
“The text as it stands reflects a strong push to receive REDD funds, with no oversight,” said Dr Rosalind Reeve of Global Witness. “With no provisions to monitor how countries are implementing REDD . . . the agreement is worth no more than the paper it is written on.”
Kevin Conrad, Papua New Guinea’s climate change envoy and director of the Coalition of Rainforest Countries, who has championed REDD since 2005, said it was never envisaged that they would get involved in the carbon markets right away, and that this would take time.
Referring to a scandal in his own country, where a senior forestry official was removed after doing a murky deal with “carbon cowboys”, he said this was why the coalition “keeps speaking out strongly against voluntary carbon credits” for forest protection.
Mr Conrad said a recent study had shown that it would cost €15- €25 billion to reduce global rates of deforestation by 25 per cent by 2015. “What that adds up to is potential saving of seven gigatonnes [of carbon dioxide] over that timeframe,” he added.
Although Mr Conrad believed that REDD could be one of the few positive outcomes of Copenhagen, Nathaniel Dyer, of the Rainforest Foundation UK, warned that it “might end up as a greenwashing exercise if there is no legally binding climate change agreement”.
