By Climatico Contributor: Nick Oakes

REDD+ technicalities agreed, finance not. (Source: Oxfam International)

Recalling last week’s benchmarks for the success of REDD+ negotiations at COP17, we can take each in turn and assess state of the negotiations on each topic. As expected, much of the discussion has been focussed on the MRV text (and addendum) from the SBSTA, which has now been presented to the COP for adoption this week.

There’s agreement that forest countries should be able to choose whether to use Reference Emission Levels (RELs) or Reference Levels (RLs). Forest countries will also be permitted to use RELs or RLs in different regions and aggregate up to a national level, allowing some much desired flexibility to the mammoth task of national accounting of forest carbon.

On the verification of emissions reductions, the text does not specify a body that is responsible for the verification. This could be forest countries, donor countries or third parties. Given the political element to verification – namely the protection of national sovereignty – it seems likely REDD+ could proceed down the same lines as the CDM, meaning forest country bodies approved by the UNFCCC will verify emissions reductions, although we will probably have to wait another year before there is clarity on this issue.

The text puts forward requirements for the reporting of safeguards. Controversially, and attracting criticism from many observers, it does not do enough to measure how safeguards will be respected, and in the event that they are not respected, detail the punitive measure faced by those in violation of those safeguards.

The concern here seems to largely relate to social safeguards – ensuring the rights of local communities are respected and penalties enforced, and their inclusion in the benefits of REDD+. The current text asks only that forest countries submit information on how they are implementing safeguards, which can be compared against standards set for their implementation. It does not require that forest countries submit information on the impacts of REDD+ on local communities, or to put it another way, whether the safeguards that have been implemented are fit for purpose. As Louis Verchot, climate change scientist at the Centre for International Forestry Research noted, “what has been put forward here are standards for reporting, not standards for performance, and we need to see decisions on performance standards to move forward with REDD+.”

The AWG-LCA has drafted a note on the outcomes of a number of working groups, but for the REDD+ working group, tasked with looking in to finance options, the text, unsurprisingly, does not show much in the way of material progress. At the moment the text seems to simply push back a decision on finance by asking the secretariat to provide financing options before the thirty-eight meeting of the SBSTA.

The remainder of COP17 will see the final adoption of the text presented to the COP by the SBSTA, possibly with some more clarity on a timescale and focussed discussions on the possibilities for finance options. With much of the technicalities agreed, however, getting REDD+ off the ground is now intimately dependent on reconnecting it back with discussions of international agreements and finance, to which the remainder of COP17 will be devoted.

Image by Ben+Sam

In an earlier post, attention was drawn to the importance of Canada’s Boreal forests to its climate change strategy. As of May 2010, Canada signed the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, this was a voluntary agreement between companies (21 member FPAC) and Environmental organizations that account for two thirds of Canada’s entire Boreal forest. The agreement commits (Pew Trust has an overview here) companies FPAC (Forest Products Association of Canada) to develop and implement a framework by December 2010.

Continue reading…

It rarely receives the same attention as the Amazon rain forest, one is being devastated by illegal

Deforestation (credit: energyportal.eu)

logging and development but the other, Canada’s Boreal forests also represents a key battleground against Climate Change. Set in the in the far north, not far below the arctic line, the Boreal forests are a huge band across Canada stretching from coast to coast, annually temperatures can go from 30C in the summer all the way down to -50C in the winter. Covering 2.9million km^2,, and representing 25% of the world’s un-developed forests the Boreal forests are a huge source of concern for conservationists and Scientists alike.

The Boreal is to carbon what Fort Knox is to gold.
These maps document where and how these vital reserves
– a virtual shield against global warming –
are distributed across Canada. We should do everything we can
to ensure that the carbon in these storehouses is not released.

Dr. Jeff Wells, Senior Scientist, International Boreal Conservation Campaign

From the point of view of Climate Change a truer statement could hardly have been made, because locked up in the Boreal forests are over 100 billion tonnes of Carbon, and they annually sequester 12.5m tonnes of Carbon each year making them a critical sink of Carbon but more importantly a source of Carbon that needs to remain locked in.

Their importance has for several years attracted strong concern from various environmental groups from their own Conservation group the IBCC to Green Peace and a number of similarly concerned conservation and environmental organisations. Many feel that the ever-rising demands from industries that rely on boreal forest resources could in the long-term threaten the Boreal Forests. However a turning point came in 2007 when 1,500 Scientists from over 50 countries signed a letter calling for conservation measures to be put into place.

Their concerns were not without merit. Canada’s natural resources, already a critical part of its economy are subject to ever rising demand. In particular logging, mining and energy development all place demands on the Boreal forest region. These demands are set to increase with the growing appetites of China and India for raw materials, putting greater pressure on provincial governments to open up more of the Boreal forests for development.

As if shouldering the burden of economic weight was not enough, natural phenomena have begin to take their toll on the Boreal forests, forest fires and Pine-beetles, already devastating in the US have taken their toll on Canadian forests. Pine beetles, able to spread through rising temperatures, destroyed 130,000 km² in Western Canada in 2008, as well as devastating parts of the US.

Forest fires, have been equally devastating, with perhaps the most concerning statistic being that in some years forest fires account for up to 45% of Canada’s GHG emissions, and large-scale forest fires have hardly been a scarce: 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Fortunately the importance is starting to sink in and rising awareness has prompted greater efforts to preserve, manage or sustainably develop the Boreal Forests.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest has promised to sustain 50% of its Northern forests from intensive development such as mining and 12% from any development at all. Quebec as in most has to walk the line between mining and logging mining, a multi-billion dollar industries for Canada.

Nevertheless, even Alberta, Canada’s oil state and home of the Tar-sands, has recognised the importance of preservation. The Alberta Research Council, working with the Pembina institute and Forestry leaders has formulated a policy to offset Alberta’s declining Boreal forests.

However, the most groundbreaking effort comes from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, no stranger to bold environmental legislation (he recently proposed the Green Energy Act) he has promised to preserve 50% of Ontario’s Boreal forests and the other half subject to sustainable development regulation. This amounts to 225,000 km² of land where even hunting and fishing will be severely curtailed and other development completely banned.

Of equal importance, is the emphasis on sustainable development for the other 50%. As this article, makes clear up to 24,000 people live in the Boreal forested part of Ontario many of them first nations people and Metis communities. McGuinty has pledged to allow sustainable development with them, including reforming mining, to make it more sustainable. While the plan is estimated to take 10-15 years before its fully realised, like the Green Energy Act, Ontario has become an uncompromising trendsetter in its dedication to environmental pursuits.

The Boreal forests, might not have the attention of the Amazon, and are often second in environmentalists demands, in the place of renewable energy or fighting the tar sands but they represent a key battle that should never be far from campaigners eyes. Much of the above legislation is a start in the right direction, but how durable conservation efforts will prove, in the face of rising global demand for raw materials and the economic benefits to Canadian provinces and even local communities will prove a much greater test in the years ahead.