It's hard to imagine with all the progress REDD has achieved, that it all started less than 20 years ago with the Rio Summit in '92, when the makings of a global sustainability architecture in the form of a climate treaty began to take shape. But a forestry treaty had yet to happen.
It was only in '93 that the Forest Stewardship Council organized its first meeting around reforming governance structures to improve forest management but REDD wasn't even in play yet. In the mid 90s tropical deforestation got a lot of coverage and back then Japan was the bad guy. They were the biggest consumer of tropical hardwood and were tone deaf about it. There was no debate.
The Kyoto meeting in '97 did produce a climate agreement but no real progress on forests. From 2000-2008 were the dark ages under the Bush administration, which didn't even want to talk about the climate. The Foundation community did get a lot of funding requests for forests, climate and carbon but there was a lack of standards and there were the issues of additionality, leakage, permanence and getting the carbon measurement right. In the late 2000 or naughts, the problem of deforestation became clearer. It accounts for about a quarter of all worldwide emissions, more than the global transportation sector combined. Indonesia became the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, due solely to land use change--as their virgin tropical forests were being converter to palm oil plantations to meet global demand.
Finally, while the Copenhagen Accord was disappointing, negotiators reached a near consensus on most issues for a REDD+ agreement. In addition, the interest and attention REDD+ garnered was evident from the numerous side events focused on one or another aspect of REDD+, indigenous issues, MRV systems, etc. While there has been a lack of information, a lack of trust about the kind of deals going on, the first ever historical State of the Forest Carbon Market report has sought to unify this information in a single report outlining once in for all, the market volumes, values, prices, number of deals, market players by region, project type, organization type and standard preferences.
With over 20 years of experience in the forestry sector, Michael Northrup, Program Director of Sustainable Development at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, was invited by the Pinchot Institute for Conservation to give a Distinguished Lecture, "After Copenhagen: Implications for U.S. Climate, Energy, and Forest Policy" at the high brow, exclusive Cosmos Club. Northrup casually described to the 30 or so people in the room where we are with REDD today and how we got here. Plus he played the "name game" as he knew most of the people in the room.
But are we going to cross the finish line?
Northrup doesn't know if we're going to achieve a climate agreement in Cancun (COP 16) but he says REDD+ has to be multidimensional for it to work properly. That means it has to address not just carbon but communities and the environment as well. It has to adhere to standards that everyone believes in.
And how do you make standards credible? Third party verification.
Get it started and fix it later?
REDD is the biggest pool of money that will ever go into the forest sector so deal with it responsibly Northrup advises. For one, actors involved should be aligned. Certification providers (like the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the American Carbon Registry and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity standards) should collaborate since they have a small staff and they need a global network. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) should get involved with REDD by sitting down with the standards folks as well. The United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could support good governance metrics on REDD for national level programs and help craft a compliance grade standard based on the lessons learned from the voluntary standard providers. A shining example of collaboration and alignment of disparate actors is British Columbia and practical lessons could be gleaned from the forestry sector in that region.
Dreaming the green dream, waking up, and doing it.
The UNEP has called on G20 countries to invest 1% of their country's GDP to promoting green economic sectors and South Korea has emerged as the leader of the 'Global Green New Deal' (UNEP report). Who knew? South Korea is the world's green economy superstar. South Korean president Lee Myung-bak first announced the country's move to the green lane in 2008, with a 'Low Carbon, Green Growth' vision, which morphed into a 'Green New Deal' in January of 2009 after the global financial crises hit. Green stimulus projects like renewable energy, mass transit, energy conservation, and environmental restoration projects account for about 80% of the country's economic stimulus package, which is supposed to create close to a million jobs.
Back in the US, $94 billion of our 2 stimulus packages are geared to clean energy transformation, according to a January report to the Council on Economic Advisors.
For case studies on practical steps taken by countries shifting to a green economy, check out 'Rethinking the Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal.'
Green Economy Session Panelists: Pavan Sukhdev (UNEP), Ed Barbier (University of Wyoming), Melinda Kimble (UN Foundation), Bill Becker (Climate Action Project)
National Council on Science and the Environment Conference website
]]>Good sentiments, but action? Ecosystem Marketplace will be following concrete developments throughout the year.
Ahmed Djoghlaf, the Executive Secretary of the CBD, reports that of 110 countries sending in reports on 2010 CBD targets (aiming for a significant reduction of the rate of biodiversity loss, promised in 1992), not a single country has met its goals. The US never even signed up - Clinton signed on in 1993 but the convention was never ratified by the Senate, and maybe it never will be - Mr. Djoghlaf isn't optimistic. The European Commission is already mulling over four options for 2020 biodiversity targets for the EU (here and here).
Meanwhile, WWF does its part in raising biodiversity awareness by listing the top 10 most threatened (and dare I say cute?) species in 2010, including their own logo, the giant panda, as well as: tiger, polar bear, Pacific walrus, leatherback turtle, bluefin tuna (OK, not so cute, but tasty), Magellanic penguin, mountain gorilla, monarch butterfly, and Javan rhinoceros.
*Except for the bit about a 1-degree C increase in temperature associated with a 10% loss of animal and plant species
That was the topic at today's private sector roundtable discussion held at the Moore Foundation, part of the Katoomba Meeting XVI, on "Harnessing New Investment for the Protection of Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Services," and co-hosted by Forest Trends and T.C. Hoffmann & Associates, LLC.
For companies reliant on the marine ecosystems be it for raw materials or related to location of operations, they have begun the process to understand the value of those dependencies as well as impacts on ecosystem services. The small discussion groups
focused on three key questions: 1) What are the business needs; 2) What approaches to focus on first; and 3) How best to engage the private sector in the process.
For the Forest Trends MARES program, this Katoomba meeting was intended to be a beginning point from which to begin building a new blueprint for harnessing new investment in marine and coastal ecosystem services.
More than 140 participants representing NGOs, academia, private foundations, government agencies, and private industry-from insurance, financial, oil and gas to seafood-are gathered at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to lay out the concepts on marine ecosystem services and market-based conservation mechanisms including some early experiences, lessons learned and best practices from the fisheries and freshwater sectors. Rather than an examination of the current state of marine ecosystem markets which has focused on fishery catch shares and quota markets, the agenda orients around developing new financing tools and approaches and expanding the use of market-based mechanisms to other services such as coastline stabilization, beach management, the multiple functions of mangroves and seagrass beds, coastal water quality and ocean carbon storage.
Mangroves have been flagged as an important focus going forward due to the diversity of services they yield: carbon sequestration, as a buffer/stabilizing feature, and for their rich habitat for fish and other marine species. Among the sessions discussing the needs of coastal communities and the roles of both civil society and the private sector in forging new market opportunities, today's session on Blue Carbon and the possibilities of extending terrestrial carbon markets to cover marine carbon is sure to generate significant interest and discussion.
Similar to the ideas in freshwater PES schemes, marine and coastal PES systems and associated market offsets have the potential to achieve significantly better and more cost-effective outcomes than currently result from conservation and management approaches.
Check out the video blogging and pod casts via the Ecosystem Marketplace website: www.ecosystemmarketplace.com. For more details on the Marine Katoomba meeting, visit the Katoomba website: www.katoombagroup.org. For more information about the MARES program at Forest Trends, visit: http://www.forest-trends.org/program.php?id=137.
]]>Several negotiators said they believe that language explicitly describing such direct payments will make it into the text, albeit without the phrase "market-based" and perhaps in brackets - which is what UN negotiators do to provisions they disagree on. Such bracketing helps guide negotiations once they reach the higher level.
Negotiators are mixed on the outcome (as negotiators are wont to be), but one predicted a solution before the session ends.
NAMAs and Sub-Nationals
There is still no agreement on whether or not to categorize REDD as a "nationally-appropriate mitigation activity" (NAMA) under the Bali Action Plan. As we've reported on Ecosystem Marketplace, NAMAs are an olive branch from the developing world in lieu of mandatory caps. The idea is that the developing countries could proactively elect to reduce emissions by doing activities that suit them instead of signing up for binding targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The problem is that there's no agreement on what constitutes a NAMA (although there is no shortage of definitions - we've seen at least 15).
Proponents of categorizing REDD as a NAMA offer two arguments: first, that reducing emissions from deforestation is nothing if not a nationally-appropriate mitigation activity. Second, they argue that specific financing mechanisms for NAMAs are bound to evolve as NAMAs come into focus, and that placing REDD outside the NAMA regime now will leave it out forever.
Opponents of categorizing REDD as a NAMA counter that such categorization would slow down the implementation of REDD activities, at tremendous cost down the road.
At this point, it's bracketed as a NAMA, and that will have to be decided by higher-level negotiators on Friday.
Then you have question of whether to follow national or sub-national accounting for REDD. Most parties agree that national accounting is the only way to prevent leakage, but a consensus has formed around limited sub-national accounting in the building phases of REDD, but not in the mature phase. Columbia and Peru, however, have pushed back - with Columbia offering to monitor its deforestation on a national basis, but not agreeing to be held accountable.
Safeguards and Deforestation Targets
Social safeguards against abuse are in the preamble of the text, but are bracketed in the operational part, while environmental safeguards have several forms, some bracketed and some not.
A suggestion to specifically disallow projects that convert native forest to plantations was shot down, but a new suggestion to draft language that talks of reduced ecosystem services appears to be resonating among negotiators.
Finally, specific targets on deforestation rates have been left blank - and to be decided by high-level negotiators. Developing countries argue that any deforestation targets should be tied to funding.
REDD and LULUCF Wrap
On the way out of the center, we ran into Marcelo Rocha, co-chair of the group focusing on Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) in the Kyoto Protocol tract. He said his group expects to be working through the night.
When this is all over, Kate Hamilton will write up an analysis of LULUCF, and I'll be doing a wrap of the latest in REDD.
Keep checking Ecosystem Marketplace for the latest.
]]>However, the biggest news came at the end, when the United States Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack closed the event with an announcement that the Obama Administration was offering $1billion annually over the next several years for reducing emissions from deforestation and degredation in the developing world. Vilsak noted, "We regard this as an initial investment."
The details are still to be determined and numerous stakeholders are questioning how "additional" the investment will be from current U.S. development funding pots.
Similar pledges have now come from France, Japan, Norway, Australia, and the United Kingdom for a collective commitment of $3.5 billion over the next three years.
]]>Last week, RFF hosted a seminar to introduce the policy-making tool, which resulted from a year-long collaboration among RFF, Climate Advisers and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) researchers. The Index is publically accessible in time for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where forest carbon - or Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) - could feature prominently in a shared climate solution.
How exactly does the Index benefit decision makers? The interactive map feature enables users to customize detailed data, on a local to national scale, to explore a region's forest carbon investment potential. Uniquely, the Index creators integrated over 20 national and sub-national datasets, localized to reflect an area's REDD risks and rewards, or profit potential.
Sounds complex? Have no fear - the online interface is simple enough for the armchair analyst.
RFF demonstrates that the user-friendly online tool can also tell a powerful policy story. Through one application of their interactive mapping feature, RFF depicts the 15 percent of locations with the highest profit potential. Of these promising locations, 75 percent are concentrated in the Congo Basin.
The next map depicted investment risk, which was heavily concentrated in the same region. This stark contrast illustrates a compelling story of barriers to investment in carbon management in those regions that are both opportunity-rich and high-risk.
RFF and its research partners don't abuse terms like "risk" and "potential" - they've taken care to clearly state their assumptions and methodology. Profit potential accounts for both biological and economic factors, including the opportunity cost of forest management and forests' future carbon sequestration limits. "Risk" asses a region's governance conditions, ease of doing business and readiness to engage the market - including its technical capacity and prior experience in the global carbon markets.
The result is a tool that the RFF has already employed to inform several key findings and policy recommendations, which are published in the RFF's Summary for Policymakers. Here's a brief summary:
The Forest Carbon Index literally maps out forest carbon's global investment risks and potential, and the RFF's summary of recommendations provides users with an example of how geospatial analysis can inform climate solutions. So go ahead - map your forest carbon future. After all, seeing is understanding.
]]>"Paying more for flights eases guilt, not emissions." This catchy title of a recent New York Times article reflects the stance of many organizations that recently decided to scrap programs offering carbon offsets for travel-related emissions. Responsible Travel, Yahoo, and the US House of Representatives are just a few groups that have terminated offset-purchase programs this year, determining that their money was better spent on in-house reduction efforts.
Fair enough. But the decision of just three companies does not mean that we should abandon offset programs altogether. Nevertheless, the Times article supports precisely this type of action. The article presents opinions and statements that outright contradict the science and research surrounding the voluntary carbon markets. Take a look at these quotes:
1. "Responsible Travel suggests that offsetting may encourage some people to travel and consume more."
While this situation may seem plausible, it makes the giant assumption that before offsetting became a viable option for eco-friendly flyers, this population actually refrained from travel in order to reduce their carbon footprints. In other words, many individuals and corporations opted out of emissions-generating activities even before the whole "carbon neutral" phenomenon hit the mainstream media. Call me a skeptic, but I find this hard to believe.
2. "It has proved difficult to monitor or quantify the emissions-reducing potential of the thousands of green projects financed by customers' payments, and there are no industry wide standards."
The statement that no standards exist for carbon offsets is simply false. As documented in Ecosystem Marketplace's State of the Voluntary Carbon Market 2009, a total of 17 standards have been developed worldwide for the exact purpose of monitoring and quantifying the emissions reductions from green projects.
3. "Paul Dickinson, chief executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project said that offsetting the emissions of a flight from London to New York would probably require an extra fee of $200 to $300."
It is hard to imagine how Mr. Dickinson arrived at this price range. By multiplying The World Institute's air travel emissions factor (0.11 kg/km) by the length of the flight (5580 km) by Ecosystem Marketplace's average retail offset price ($8.90/tCO2e), this offset should cost around $5.50. True, the EM and WRI figures are estimates, but one of these numbers would have to be off by a factor of 40 in order for Mr. Dickinson's offset to fall in the $200 to $300 range.
So, before you take offsets out with the trash, be sure to keep in mind what The Times article fails to mention. Carbon offsets are a luxury good, and in this economy, it should be no surprise that the rate of individual purchases as well as corporate buy-in has declined dramatically. This downturn, however, should in no way be tied to the economic and environmental potential of this valuable market tool.
]]>Those of us working on water issues have been tracking and reporting on that fact that water scarcity is a growing problem in many parts of the world affecting businesses, governments and individuals alike. Many contend, including those at the CDP, that the actions of business will have a significant bearing on the magnitude and impact of such scarcity and, perhaps more importantly, on the development and implementation of potential solutions.
Possible benefits to water disclosures: (as summarized from the CDP's paper, The Case for Water Disclosures ):
1. Raises businesses awareness and increases overall understanding of risks and opportunities;
2. Supports efforts to develop standard measures and performance benchmarks;
3. Increases quality of information to investors, regulators and stakeholders;
4. Increases general awareness of water-related issues such as scarcity;
5. Encourages action and dialogue.
That last point may be the most significant of all as evidenced by the success of the CDP; disclosure creates the expectation that once the risks/benefits are known by all, action will follow. The worst that could result from this initiative is that it will spur businesses to be leaders in water disclosures and pressure the relevant governing bodies to set standards against which progress can be tracked to demonstrate movement toward more sustainable water use.
"Houston, we've have a problem," was a powerful and immediate call for action. Time will tell if the CDP Water Disclosure Project will yield a similar positive action by businesses to address the planets growing water threats.
One note of curiosity as reported in the Case for Water Disclosures; of the companies surveyed in the pilot project, not one company from the food and beverage sector responded to the survey (which was admittedly quite small). Their lack of response is noteworthy as they have shown leadership in other efforts to address water risks such as through participation in corporate water footprinting and other sustainability initiatives.
Read the press release here.
]]>That means a mitigation banker who restores a wetland that then teems with endangered wildlife can earn both wildlife and wetland credits from that property -- but only by delineating which parts of the property are generating wetland credits and which parts are generating biodiversity credits.
Some states, however, believe one patch of land should be able to earn multiple credits if it generates more than one environmental benefit -- such as reduction of nutrient runoff into local waterways on top of wetland mitigation.
North Carolina is one such state, and EM's Alice Kenny has taken a look at the debate over what constitutes double-dipping in her new article, When is Multi-Credit Banking a Double Dip?.
It's a question that is sure to be the center of debate for years to come as more and more environmental values are identified, and we'd like to hear your views.
When, for example, do you believe it's justifiable to award multiple credits for the same patch of land?
What do you think will have to happen before we can say that such stacking is scientifically valid???
]]>A few weeks ago, the second Dialogue on Forests, Governance & Climate Change hosted by Chatham House, the Rights and Resources Initiative and World Resources Institute was held in Washington, D.C. The conference focused on policies for improving forest governance, including lessons learned from the UNFCCC negotiations, and particularly on REDD initiatives and how they might be affected by US climate policy. Information on the event, including presentations, can be found here.
At the session entitled "Making it happen: learning from successful initiatives to slow deforestation, restore forests and promote the rights of forest communities," Yuba Raj Bhusal, Secretary of Nepal's Ministry of Forests, spoke about the good examples that exist for reducing deforestation - Nepal's forests have been well-managed for decades, if not centuries, with the result that almost 40% of its land is protected under a national forest scheme, and almost 25% of those forests are under community management. But is Nepal's situation replicable?
This question was posed, but I'm not sure it got answered. Nepal's landscape is notoriously inaccessible to markets - if the Himalaya were an easy place to get to, would those forests still exist? My guess is no. Without knocking Nepal too much (it has been my favorite place in the world to visit), its inaccessibility also keeps its people poor. Without the finances to bring in chainsaws and bulldozers, deforestation is kept to a minimum.
Nepal's example is interesting because although the traditional use rights of local communities are recognized by the government, a key to sustainable forest management, according to the Secretary, the government still technically owns the land. And what happens when REDD creates an incentive to "protect" those forests and gain funds from carbon revenue? The "traditional use rights" of those communities who depend on the forest could go right out the window. Those issues are being discussed now between Nepal's government and the communities.
But a new study from the World Bank, presented by Ken Chomitz at the conference, could provide evidence for keeping those rights in the hands of the people. The study looked at the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing deforestation. Because REDD is the Next New Thing that Will Save Us All (right?), it might help to take a look first at what actually works to reduce deforestation (and what doesn't). Although the data aren't perfect (they mapped only the incidence of fires in protected areas, multi-use, and indigenous reserves in tropical forests and weren't able to account for degradation), the results show that areas under indigenous control are much more effective at reducing or preventing deforestation than previously thought. In fact, according to the study, tropical forests are less likely to be deforested when they are under indigenous control than when they are under strict protection or sustainable use management.
So will REDD reduce deforestation more than putting forests in the hands of indigenous groups and traditional management? We'll never know until it happens. Let's just hope this study is fresh in the minds of the decision-makers in Copenhagen as they negotiate REDD's rules.