Deforestation is responsible for 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Leaders from a broad range of political, environmental, development and business communities are calling for U.S. action on deforestation in anticipation of the UNFCCC COP-15 in Copenhagen this December.

Earlier this month, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), along with a coalition of policy and scientific experts known as the “Avoided Deforestation Partnership,” led a Congressional Briefing on climate and forests, urging Congress to include strong tropical forest protection measures in U.S. climate policy.

The partnership encourages the U.S. to advance a diverse set of solutions, including market and non-market based approaches towards avoided deforestation, and to involve a wide group of experts and stakeholders, including scientists, developing nations, indigenous groups, local communities, civil society, and industry in crafting solutions that are sustainable, scalable, and equitable.

In her opening remarks, Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai remarked, “Without the leadership of the United States of America, everybody else will say, maybe this is not as serious as it seems. If America is not concerned, then it cannot be a serious issue.”

Just ten days later, this sentiment was echoed by Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who urged U.S. leadership on climate change in a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Protecting tropical forests and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation is not only a critical measure to putting the brakes on rising carbon emissions at a reasonable cost, but is regarded by many as a win-win-win strategy.  “It’s good for climate change, good for biodiversity, and good for economies around the world,” says Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy. “Forests are being destroyed at rapid rates, and this solution will not be available to us if we wait too long. Forest protection is one of the most cost-effective methods available to fight climate change with the unmatched benefit of preserving biodiversity at the same time.”

The imperative for incorporating the LULUCF sector into climate change mitigation strategies cannot be overstated.  Deforestation is responsible for approximately 20% of carbon emissions annually, and in developing nations with high rates of deforestation like Brazil and Indonesia can account for up to 80% of total annual emissions. (To get a sense of  Furthermore, reducing emissions in the LULUCF sector is arguably the most cost-effective strategy available for significant short-term reductions—this is obvious when looking at the abatement potential of LULUCF strategies per unit cost (€ per ton CO₂e) in McKinsey’s newly published cost abatement curve, more so when you consider the amount of time it will take strategies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) to be viable.

This is not to say that the avoided deforestation strategy has been perfected, and those following the REDD mechanism’s (lack of) progress through the UNFCCC process to date will attest to that.  On the scientific and technical side, there remain significant methodological problems to resolve, involving establishing appropriate baselines, proving additionality, developing monitoring capacity, and so on.  The social side of REDD is even more tenuous, and developing ways to make REDD projects sustainable and equitable from the local to the global scales will involve addressing some fundamentally contentious issues.

But the public interest in avoided deforestation and the political will for REDD and related projects, for reasons given above, is probably higher than it has ever been. And timing is of the essence.

Stuart Eizenstat, who led the U.S. delegation in the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol under President Clinton, says the time has come for the U.S. to take leadership on the issue. “By valuing carbon stored in forests, the United States can lead the way to solve global climate change and protect forests and the people and species that depend on them.  What is required now is for the United States to take up the mantle of forest protection so that it will serve as a model to the rest of the world.”  Here’s hoping the 2009 delegation to Copenhagen gets the message.

© Alfredo Dominguez

REDD is controversial: some consider it essential to halt deforestation in forest rich developing countries, others, a danger to biodiversity, indigenous communities and carbon markets. A view from Mexico shows that REDD is not a panacea to solve deforestation and yet, at least in the case of Mexico, it may be able to contribute to existing programmes that strengthen sustainable (community) forest management.

An approximated 70 – 80% of Mexican forests are ejidos, i.e. under communal management. The economic reforms under President Salinas strengthened property rights of ejidos, yet, given strict land use regulations, communities have very little possibility to gain incomes from forestry related activities, not to mention conservation. Thus, the opportunity cost to leave forests standing is too high for many of the impoverished forest communities and (illegal) land conversion for agricultural purposes is one of the main causes of deforestation according to one of the latest reports of the National Forest Commission (CONAFOR).

But the problem is much more complex: deforestation is not just driven by economic need, but also economic greed (illegal logging (supposedly responsible for 25% of deforestation) and tourism developments), public infrastructure development (from highways to oil drilling), forest fires, activities of drug cartels, local power conflicts and unsustainable ideas of economic modernization (these complexities are very well described in an article of the World Rainforest Movement on the devastating forest fires of 1998).

Ejidos although legally holding titles to the land, have lost power over how to manage their resources. Either they convert the forest to productive use (e.g. agriculture) or somebody else will come and do it, in the best case, paying them some sort of compensation, in the worst case, murdering those that try to cling to their land or protect the forest.

In this scenario, REDD earnings could support existing programmes to a) decrease the opportunity costs of conserving forests; b) do justice to communities who protect their forests and pay for their conservation of environmental services; and c) support government and communities in fighting against illegal land conversion and deforestation.

But it will probably not be able to do much more than that, as a little back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests. Mongabay, a site that “seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife” calculates that Mexico could earn some USD70 million for a 10% reduction in deforestation (using an optimistic price of USD30 per ton of CO2 reduced). According to their calculations, this would equal a return of USD2,100 (!) per hectare of reduced deforestation.

BUT what does one hectare of reduction in deforestation imply ? (that is what Mongabay does not calculate).
Mexico’s National Forest Commission (CONAFOR) estimated in a presentation on Mexico’s advances in preparing for REDD (June 2008) that one hectare of reduction in deforestation requires 180 hectares under sustainable forest management and 150 hectares under conservation. Consequently, the various government programmes that are expected to cover almost 20 million hectares of forest between 2007 and 2012 will yield an estimated reduction in deforestation of 310,000 hectares. If REDD pays only for actual reduction in deforestation the per hectare value of REDD earnings -considering the entire forest area under sustainable management and conservation- will only yield: USD34 (not including transaction costs for project development, verification, monitoring, etc). That is maybe better than nothing, it might even be more than what some farmers earn from small scale farming activities, yet, it will not be enough to keep private interests at bay.

Thus, REDD alone will not solve deforestation. However, given that Mexico has created a strong legal and regulatory framework and is working on expanding its market incentives for sustainable forest management, REDD could provide financial support to strengthening these efforts.

As President Yudhoyono was first greeting and then demanding leadership from visiting US secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on climate change, the old saying ‘those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ comes to mind. In particular two recent events do not bode well for the future, namely the re-emergence of the forest fire problem and the decree to use peat lands as palm oil plantations.

Forest Fires

Forest fires are one of the main reasons that Indonesia is the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world. Beyond that, it also creates tensions with Indonesia’s neighbours: for example in 1997-8, the forest fires blanketed the whole of SE Asia causing health problems and economic damage. Faced with these issues the Indonesian government has made routine pledges to prevent the situation ever arising again. For example the National Action Plan for Climate Change promises to reduce forest fire hot spots by 50% in 2009. Unfortunately this year, severe fires have already been detected in Riau, Sumatra, resulting in haze over Pekanbaru, the provincial capital. Two factors suggest that this problem will only get worse, not better:

1. El Nino/ La Nina effect: This is a southern hemisphere oscillation that has a large effect on the weather across the globe. As a general rule La Nina brings heavy rain to Indonesia while El Nino conditions are associated with drought. So far this year has been La Nina: nonetheless there have still been hundreds of fires. However these conditions are likely to end in April, with El Nino starting either later this year or next year, resulting in a significantly drier climate, which of course encourages fires.
2. Lack of government supervision: despite government promises to stop the building of commercial sites of forested lands, the recent fires have been directly linked to forest clearance for palm oil plantations. While independent programmes exist to help control burning on the local, subsistence level, there appears to be no such effort in the commercial field.

Peat Land conversion

Peat lands are crucial carbon sinks, trapping CO2 that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. Greenpeace estimating that Indonesia’s peat lands contain 37.8 billion tonnes. In order to grow palm oil on peat lands, it must be first cleared then drained thereby releasing the trapped CO2 into the atmosphere. Furthermore this practice increases significantly the chances of fires: a report by Wetlands International in 2006 concluded that in this entire process, Indonesia emits 6.5 times the CO2 it does by burning fossil fuels.

Despite this, the government announced new plans to open up peat lands for conversion to commercial palm oil plantations. The agriculture and environmental ministries tried to assure environmentalists that the process will be strictly regulated, will recapture all the carbon lost in the conversion process and that the plantations will not be opened on peat land more than 3 meters deep.

Such claims have led to anger among activists: for example Yuyun Indradi of Greenpeace states “the government needs to protect the remaining peatlands and forests if we are to slow down climate change and protect the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities and biodiversity.” This is also a slap in the face of campaigners who have been pushing for the utilization of degraded land for palm oil plantations (last week’s blog dealt with this issue) rather than forests. It seems that the government has ignored these pleas.

So why? The first reason involves economics and the global recession. Gatot Irianto, from the Agriculture Ministry, admits as much when he said “we still need land for oil palm plantations. We must be honest: the sector has been the main driver for the people’s economy”. The second deals with domestic politics and the upcoming general elections. As Bustar Maitar of Greenpeace accuses “with the general elections coming up, the Agriculture Ministry’s plan is fishy, because it seems like an attempt to satisfy the country’s powerful paper and palm oil industries at the expense of the environment.”

Overall this has been a bad week for Indonesia who once again seems to put short-term economic interests above those of the health of its people and the global climate. By pursuing such dubious policies, it puts at risk Indonesia’s participation in future REDD projects. While it is important to demand action from leading Developed countries like the US, it must also show commitment at home to take action. So far it is failing.

To hear about water crisis in Ethiopia does not surprise, but not many people would expect that Mexico, an industrializing country, is facing serious water challenges. Punctually to the 20th anniversary of Conagua (Mexico’s National Water Commission), Mexico City has to close its water taps: from January until the end of the dry season (April), water supplies will be suspended for three days per month, to alleviate water shortages of Mexico City’s fresh water sources, which due to scarce precipitation, have reached the lowest levels for the past 16 years.

This is certainly not a once-off problem but the first signs of the culmination of two phenomena: immense overexploitation of available water resources not just in Mexico City but across the country and decreasing precipitation due to climatic changes.

With respect to the latter, the Ministry of Environment (SEMARNAT) and the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences of the Universidad Autónoma de México estimate that by 2020 precipitation rates in the Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City could fall by 5% while temperatures may rise by up to 1.2 degrees Celsius, increasing evaporation.

And Mexico City is surely not the only place facing these risks: in fact, the entire centre as well as the North of Mexico exhibits a similar problematic: severe overexploitation of water resources, and impending adverse impacts on water resources due to climate change.

What are the key problems: in Mexico City, it is of course rapid growth of the urban area, significant water losses due to an obsolete water distribution system but especially pollution of water bodies due to untreated release of sewage water. According to Government statistics (INEGI) Mexico’s urban areas generate 243 cubic meters of wastewater per second of which 25% drain off somewhere into the land-/cityscape, and only a third of which is treated. This does not account for leakage of pollutants due to waste and refuse such as Mexico City’s “Bordo Poniente”, the world’s second largest landfill site that receives 12.5 thousand tons of waste on a daily basis. In addition, deforestation and land use change threaten hydrological cycles and the replenishment of aquifers.

What are the solutions?

Mexico City is expecting the start of the construction of what will be the world’s largest water treatment plant, with a capacity of processing 23 cubic meters of water per second. Water treatment, the extension of sewage systems and access to potable water are also the priorities of Conagua. All these measures are of dire importance, yet as long as they are not coupled with activities that tackle not only symptoms but the actual root causes of the problem -pollution and overexploitation, due to bad planning at national and local level- Mexico will be ill-prepared to face water related impacts to climate change.