By Chris Lang, 3rd July 2009
Penny Wong is Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Water.
Ilya Gridneff is a journalist working for the Australian Associated Press in Papua New Guinea.
Recently, Gridneff sent 10 questions to Wong asking about Australia’s funding to Papua New Guinea regarding climate change. Given that PNG is currently embroiled in a scandal over the issuance of REDD “credits”, the questions seem perfectly reasonable. The Australian government has established a multi-million dollar series of initiatives on forests and carbon that are explicitly aimed at influencing the negotiations towards establishing a REDD mechanism under the UNFCCC. It is an extremely sensitive, important international issue. It is also public money. “The predictable, anodyne Australian Government response would be funny if it wasn’t the bane of my existence,” Gridneff writes.
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By Chris Lang, 2nd July 2009
Last week, Theo Yasause, the director of Papua New Guinea’s Office of Climate Change, was suspended while an internal investigation of the office is carried out, reports Australian Associated Press. For several weeks, the government of Papua New Guinea has been embroiled in a scandal over the issuance of a series of REDD credits, in the absence of any policy or legislation. Yasause denies having done anything wrong.
Two journalists have been covering these REDD developments in Papua New Guinea: Natasha Loder is based in the UK and works for The Economist; and Ilya Gridneff, works for the Australian Associated Press in Port Moresby, PNG. This post is an attempt to summarise their stories so far. Please visit their blogs for more information. Loder blogs on Overmatter: Leftovers from the science desk at The Economist and Gridneff on Papua News Guinea.
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By Chris Lang, 1st July 2009
The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) has approved the readiness plans (R-Plans) for Panama and Guyana, reports the Bank Information Center. In doing so the FCPF ignored the advice and recommendations of its own Technical Advisory Panel. The approval demonstrates that the guidelines and standards developed under the FCPF are effectively meaningless.
From 15th to 18th June 2009, the members of the governing body of the FCPF, the Participants Committee, met in Montreaux in Switzerland. Three R-Plans were on the agenda at this meeting, from Guyana, Panama and Indonesia. Once their R-Plans are approved, countries can tap into grants up to a maximum of US$3.6 million, including a US$200,000 grant which the Bank can provide up front to support the development of the R-Plan.
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By Chris Lang, 30th June 2009
On 23 June 2009, the UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee interviewed Kevin Anderson, Research Director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Anderson is one of the UK’s leading Climate Change scientists. The interview is available here.
It is highly recommended listening. Anderson points out that the UK government’s planned carbon cuts would have a “50-50 chance” of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2°C. He notes that this is not really an acceptable level of risk, given the dangers involved of runaway climate change.
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By Chris Lang, 26th June 2009
“We practice Sustainable Forest Management,” states Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau on its website. We know that Rimbunan Hijau’s claims to sustainability are nonsense, of course. As if to make the point, the company illustrates its claim with a photograph of a monoculture tree plantation (right). In a 2006 report, Greenpeace describes Rimbunan Hijau’s operations as “Thirty years of forest plunder” and notes that “Rimbunan Hijau is responsible for many large scale destructive logging operations”. But the fact that even Rimbunan Hijau can claim to be carrying out sustainable forest management illustrates that the term is little more than a fig leaf for industrial logging - business as usual.
Yet at the UN climate negotiations, the term “sustainable forest management” is increasingly being used in the REDD negotiations.
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By Chris Lang, 24th June 2009
Friends of the Earth released a new report during the recent UN climate negotiations in Bonn: “A Dangerous Distraction - Why offsetting is failing the climate and people: The Evidence“. The report examines the record of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and asks what the effects are likely to be of expanding offsetting as proposed in the UN climate talks, including through proposed offset-based REDD mechanisms. “Offsetting is now a dangerous distraction,” Andy Atkins, Executive director of FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland writes in the introduction to the report. “Negotiators must recognise that it does not work, will not work and that it must be scrapped.”
FoE explains that “Offsets are a swap of an emissions cut in developed countries for a cut in developing countries. But action in both is needed.” The report recommends that governments should “Reject plans to introduce REDD offsets, and instead negotiate effective and fair mechanisms to protect the Earth’s forests that do not involve offsetting.”
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By Chris Lang, 16th June 2009
In March 2009, the UN-REDD programme released a document titled “UN-REDD Programme Operational Guidance: Engagement of Indigenous Peoples & other forest dependent communities“. The document includes much that is good, including references to free, prior and informed consent, the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But it fails to look at the realities faced by many Indigenous Peoples.
REDD-Monitor received the following note from John Palmer, Senior Associate, Forest Management Trust, outlining some of the omissions in the UN-REDD Operational Guidance on Indigenous Peoples. It is reproduced here in the interests of generating further discussion on the issues raised.
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By REDD-Monitor, 12th June 2009
On Monday, 8 June 2009, Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo launched a “Low Carbon Development Strategy” (LCDS) for the country. Among the foreign dignitaries at the launch was Hans Brattskar, Director of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative. Jagdeo hopes that Norway is going to bankroll his plans. Media coverage in Guyana was positive. The government-owned Guyana Chronicle, for example, gushed that Jagdeo “set the stage in a 55-minute address at the International Conference Center in Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, drawing praise immediately across the board from different stakeholders.”
Of course it is not clear whether anyone with critical opinions was invited to the launch, or whether journalists made any effort to seek out critical views. Nevertheless there are several areas for concern with Jagdeo’s plans. REDD-Monitor presents the following concerns to the governments and citizens of Guyana and Norway:
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By Chris Lang, 10th June 2009
On Monday, 8 June 2009, protesters gave delegates arriving to the climate negotiations in Bonn a simple message: “Halt climate change. Halt forest destruction. Halt plantations.” Compared to the mind-numbingly complex negotiations inside the Maritim Hotel, it was nice to have a clear vision of what the talks should be about.
A coalition of youth, environmental groups, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples organisations and women’s groups delivered a plea for delegates to ensure that any climate deal “immediately ends deforestation, industrial scale logging in primary forests and the conversion of forests to monoculture tree plantations.”
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By Chris Lang, 9th June 2009
Early in the morning of 5 June 2009, the Peruvian military police violently attached a group of indigenous people who were peacefully blockading a road outside of Bagua, in northern Peru. Protesters included many women and children. Police dropped tear gas bombs from helicpoters and fired live ammunition from both sides into the crowd, trapping some of the protesters. Reports estimate that the number of people killed is somewhere between 40 and 85, including three children. ENS reports that “As the demonstrators were being killed and injured, some wrestled with police, fighting back in self-defense, which resulted in the reported deaths of the nine police officers.” Peruvian authorities say that 22 police were killed.
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