Although it may disappoint you, I was actually no longer working for EcoSecurities at the time of writing the above entry. I am certainly no blind disciple neither of carbon markets as such nor of any particular company or organisation. However, I wrote what I did as a citizen concerned about a truly existential problem and an unconstructive debate about how to find a solution.

There may be some potential improvements to how clearly I expressed my views, but I think you should carefully and open-mindedly re-read what I wrote without condemning viewpoints in advance. If you read what I wrote as a “fanatically doctrinal article of faith” in “unregulated markets”, then I have little hope in arriving at a fruitful exchange of ideas.

I am more than willing to engage in a constructive discussion about the risks of markets, how they can be addressed through better regulation, and what alternatives exist. I am aware of other approaches proposed and believe that a combination of many elements of all of these is needed. A solution-oriented discussion should also include a frank analysis of the risks of corruption, intransparency, and marginalisation of people in government-to-government schemes and other approaches suggested (although I do see a need for them as well). Even using revenues from auctioning of carbon credits (and please note that this would be using a distinct carbon market element!) would face many of the potential problems seen by large-scale public and multilateral funding campaigns in developing countries. But all of this should be discussed non-ideologically (and I do mean it) in order to improve what was tried in the past.

…dodgy carbon traders ( think A Gore) and corrupt government officials (think A Gore) would be enriched

…caught REDD-handed with their fingers in the till

Perfect analysis

He claims that forest carbon trading has the potential to “alter the development pathway we are on, save some of humankinds heritage, and help mitigate climate change”, but I challenge him to show how his company’s business in other sectors has served to achieve any of these worthy obectives so far.

Mr Ebeling then goes on to try and reassure us that things are much better under the emerging REDD regime, because we can “access and dissect” information about the various proposals. There is some truth to this, but then one has to question whether this ‘transparency’ is actually making anything better. As I understand it, one can, for example, transparently view many of the documents for the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, including the reports of the expert Technical Advisory Panel on the various country proposals – but we cannot see the internal World Bank papers that show how the decisions were taken by World Bank management to proceed with the R-PLANS, *regardless* of what is said by the experts in those TAP papers. There is a danger of the *illusion* of transparency being created, whereas the real decision-making and rationale remain as opaque as the business plans of Sumatran palm oil companies.

Mr Ebeling somewhat fails against his own criticism, because whilst he acknowledges the shortcomings of unregulated markets, and notes that these have “definite shortcomings” – he does not offer us any suggestions as to how these shortcomings and lack of regulation can and should be addressed. It strikes me that the main proponents of a market-based approach to avoiding deforestation have been in the most profound state of denial, as they have continued to proclaim what the market can to do improve the world even as unregulated markets have collapsed around them and brought the world economy to its knees. I do not recall one single UNFCCC discussion, one conference, or one serious policy paper on what exactly would be needed to regulate a REDD scheme based on market mechanisms.

I agree very much with Mr Ebeling on one point: we really have to “leave ideology aside”. In the absence of any working example of market-based success, with the abundant evidence of the risk of unregulated market mechanisms, and in the absence of any empirical or even proposed measures to regulate and mitigate the risks, I think it is high time that we set-aside what seems to me to be not just the ‘idelogical’, but actually the fanatically doctrinal article of faith that the markets are going to solve the problem.

RW

What worries me deeply, however, is the potential effect of pointing out valid weaknesses and open questions (and conjuring up some others) about REDD and carbon forestry WITHOUT providing anything constructuve and without suggesting solutions or better alternatives. This site has probably done more than any other to discredit a fledgling and still largely to be defined mechanism that – if designed properly (constructive suggestions are welcome!) – does at least have a real potential to alter the development pathway we are on, save some of humankinds heritage, and help mitigate climate change. I cannot help the feeling that by creating so much negativity (and fear!) about one proposed way forward, one will allow it to fail even before having started and will help the forces of the status quo remain in place.

What is happening right now in the world’s tropical forests, to indigenous people in these forests, to small farmers around them? Are we content with letting these processes continue unabated by focussing on criticising a proposed alternative? How transparent, accountable, and equitable are “baseline” drivers and agents such as palm oil, soy and timber companies?

I think we urgently need a constructive debate about how to address these issues. Poorly regulated market forces are causing much of the mess we are in, and throwing in yet another unregulated force will certainly not solve things. But noone is suggesting that, carbon markets only exist because of regulation, and it is quite possible that carbon markets are indeed one of the market domains where actors can be held accountable and have to follow transparent rules if we make a coordinated efforts. Although there is much to do, compare the possibility of viewing PDDs and validation reports on the UNFCCC website (and of gaining media attention with pointing out any shortcomings) with the possiblity of viewing operational permits or management audits of a palm oil company in Sumatra, let alone scrutinising the “standards” they have to follow. The fact that one can obviously access and dissect so many the FCPF documents, R-PPs etc relatively easily is maybe also worth at least some recognition and respect.
There are definite shortcomings of current carbon markets, standards, participants, which is hardly any wonder considering how young they are. Much needs to be improved – and luckily it can be improved which is evidenced through the rapid evolution of standards and quality-control mechanisms, e.g. in the voluntary markets.

It is also worth asking whether the default alternative to carbon markets – massive government and donor-led funding – is likely to lead to more transparent and equitable results, or, importantly, to actually do anything about the problem of deforestation and what comes along with it, especially poor governance and corruption. I am NOT suggesting that problems with one option validate the alternative, but I do think we need to be honest and results-oriented in the debate. Just to pre-empt a potential reply: Clearly much government capacity and public investment is needed to make any REDD market scheme – and any other imaginable REDD scheme – work. There is no point in trying to find black and white distinctions.

So – let’s try to leave ideology aside, even if it makes for such easy debates. We really owe more to the world’s forests, people and climate.

Trading carbon will NOT WORK for PNG until we get our corruption problem under control. For you to distract us by telling us we should focus on REDD is to prevent us from building the foundation that would ever allow REDD to work.

Where did you get this info that 80% of our people depend on forests for livelihoods? It’s hardly acurate. Arguably, the majority of our population either lives in town or in areas that were long ago deforested, and they grow their gardens in that deforested land (Wahgi Valley, etc etc).

You outsiders already tried your style of big NGO conservation in our country and all indications are that it was an abysmal failure! Why? Because you people may hear our words but you aren’t listening.

Deal with corruption first in PNG.

We must at least give credit to Mr Conrad for identifying some important issues that needed to be sorted, but that should have been done before all these hype. PNG, we need to go back to the drawing board.

We need to ask, if trading carbon will work for PNG? In this society when 80% of people depend on the forest to sustain their livelihood – I worry about “leakage”. Where land is owned by clans – I wonder about the size of the forest that can meet the minimum size for trading. If clans bundle their lands together -I wonder how the benefits will be shared. If the benefits do come, I wonder what the recipients will do with the money; If the trading scheme will go on for 50-60 years, I wonder where the next generation will live when bulk of the land is set aside for trading carbon. So many questions…….

So fellow Papua New Guineans, you’re just using carbon trades as an excuse to ignore the FIRST problem we have to correct in PNG. As long as you ignore it, don’t expect any good idea for PNG to bear fruit for the people before it is utterly corrupted and stolen by the leadership.

For Kevin Conrad to even allow himself to be associated with this corrupt, dysfunctional regime is to give it his blessing. That alone is despicable.

I agree with B Witness that our problem is not enough enforced rules over business, rather than too much government interference as Conrad says (to divert attention away from his own failures, no doubt!).

It may be useful to air our views but we must remember that at the end of the day, we have to go through the government process of getting things done, thus lets stream all our energy into assisting the OCCES to deliver on the REDD mechanism if you are with it or have some alternative solution to the REDD mechanism. I believe it is time for all of us to work together either for or against REDD and do something that will be sustainable for Papua New Guineans to benefit as a whole.

With the recent sidelining of the head of OCCES, lets us not forget the contributions the OCCES has made in the last 6-7 months of its existence, we should commend the officers for the energy that has been given towards PNG’s push for REDD. Lets remember REDD is only one component of largers issues to be considered for Copenhagen, what about Adaptation strategies, can we also prioritise Adaptation as well.

Cheers

Undiabu