Forests with a Climate Change Perspective

I was supposed to do this blog post last year, and I say late is better than never. Plus I understand this issue much more after the past week and a half so I can relay this to you in a much more comprehensive way now.

History

 Forests are incredibly important to the prevention of anthropogenic climate change, that is if they are left standing. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deforestation and degradation accounts for about 14-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, an initiative to protect forests, specifically tropical forests was taken on by the UN Framework for the Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties. This was done through the Bali Agreement in COP 13 with a program called REDD or Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. This program was constructed as a carbon market in which businesses and governments can essentially pay developing countries to protect their forests, and in return because those forests are protected and will not contribute to carbon emissions the companies and developed countries can buy the right to pollute.

The problem with this initial idea was that countries could threaten their forests and then once they enrolled in REDD collect money from their hostage situation. This was obviously a problem so the program was amended to also encourage those countries that have been protecting their forests in the first place to maintain their "carbon stocks." This is when REDD became REDD+. Mechanisms were established and the program was developed more as the negotiations went on. However, in Cancun REDD took a turn for the worst. Bolivia had some serious issues with the agreement. They fundamentally did not thing that forests should be subjected to a carbon market because of the concerns of the abuses of this program by countries. They ended up blocking the program, which is serious because in the UN process true consensus is needed, and if one country disagrees it is not supposed to move through.

Unfortunately for Bolivia, the President of that COP in Cancun said that it was essentially consensus so the program moved forward, and this is why REDD exists today and is monitored by the UN. Although REDD+ exists, it is sort of informal. Companies, countries and subnational carbon markets use REDD as a mechanism to purchase carbon offsets and manage their carbon markets. There are basic programs in their first phases of being established in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Laos, and Ethiopia. They are setting up monitoring systems, establishing conservation plans, bringing in experts into the country to set up the infrastructure for the program, and surveying local people on forest uses. So this program is moving forward, and finally here in Poland at COP 19, years later, countries are starting to commit financing to REDD. Ironically, COP 19 is a finance conference, but none of the strong initiatives being proposed by the negotiators have received any commitments for funding while REDD has. Always an interesting outcome at COP. You never know what will happen.

Concerns

So now that you know the history of REDD there are quite a few concerns surrounding the policy that I would like to touch on.

Leakage

There is a concern that if some areas are protected then forests in other areas and countries will be destroyed instead because market demands are still maintained. This, in consequence, does not reduce greenhouse gases, but only pays countries to protect small areas of forests.

Indigenous Rights and Sovereignty

There is concern that as governments manage forests that have traditionally been used by indigenous people those people will lose access to their land or livelihoods. Additionally, those people are sometimes considered sovereign nations by the nation that houses them, but they are not recognized in the UN processes. Therefore, the people that are directly impacted by the program do not have a say in the development of REDD itself.

Finally, on this point there is a concern about developed nations forcing certain management practices onto other countries.

Morals

In general there are concerns about allowing markets to protect certain forested areas and not others, or just having markets at all relating to carbon. Creating markets out of forests is dangerous, and it not something countries can just buy and sell. They are areas that provide ecosystem services and maintain biodiversity that is critically needed for this planet.

Logistics

There are concerns about implementation and whether there is enough infrastructure to monitor the programs well enough to make sure that they are functioning well, and have the impact they were intended to have. This is also a really complex program that is hard to understand and implement especially at the local level.

There are concerns on whether the finances will get to the people that need it, or if they will go to those that are at the top levels of the government. This includes concerns about corruption of the governments as well.

I am sure I missed some concerns and did not address all of the issues that are involved with REDD. After all I am also still learning about all of this as well. However, this is a quick overview as I understand it. If anyone that reads this and finds serious mistakes in this narrative please let me know via the comment box below.