I cross posted this to the Its Getting Hot In Here blog so it would get out there more: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/11/17/why-did-conservation-international-invite-thomas-friedman-to-go-to-brazil/

Far from having provided a clear explanation of how REDD carbon trading will work – as Richard Wineberg believes – Freidman has done nothing except provide an exemplar of US-centric arrogance and ignorance.

Why on earth would we think that it is going to be politically easier to get, say, 15 or 20 largely mis-governed tropical countries to stop the activities of hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers, stop the logging companies that they have been taking bribes from for the last 30 years, stop the cattle ranchers that pay for political campaigns, or stop the agro-industries that run entire provinces or states, employ millions of people and fill the national treasury with hard currency – than it is to, say, ban 5 litre engined cars in the US?

Curiously, Freidman misses the obvious conclusion to his ‘analysis’: that the government of the world’s most powerful nation would appear to be less capable of tackling the causes of climate change than, say, that of Brazil, the Congo or Papua New Guinea. Maybe he should reflect on where exactly the “whole new system of economic development” might most be needed.

Should negotiators in Copenhagen lead the world to a pathway where tropical forested developing countries will be rewarded for avoiding deforestation and degradation, so that billions of dollars are eventually not wasted away in that exercise, I agree with Friedman on one point, that there will in fact be the need for a new system (or model) of economic development.

But what Friedman does not articulate in his article, nor is it raised in this blog, it simply is not an issue of creating market incentives and new governance arrangements (were that at all easy) for the new economic system to function. There are tremendous constraints to REDD involving corruption in tropical forested countries at administrative and traditional leadership levels, weak community level social capital that disables the potential “avoiders of deforestation” (aka the local people, indigenous or otherwise, along with external agents who provide incentives to the local people to operate unsustainably in “their” forests for lack of any viable options to meet subsistence and minimal household needs like edcucation and health etc.) There also are lack of proven methods used by big NGOs and donors supporting them to address all facets of the REDD issue to justify major capital outlays for REDD implementation in the short -term.

Absent some entity covering transaction costs for what I would label “strategic preparatory work”, where compelling models for addressing REDD are tested, monitored, and adaptively managed in a a more serious that the development and conservation community has ever operated previously in regard to methodology development, it remains up to optimistic visionaries to see how REDD will comprehensively contribute to both climate change objectives while providing poverty alleviation for local peoples.

This means that the PILOT TESTING OF METHODOLOGIES will be required that substantively differ in strategy and procedures from the methods used over the past 20-30 years to promote development and conservation programs. While we have spent billions of $US on conservation and development programs over those years, where are the validated methods and tools to enable us to believe that REDD can be tackled at the scales envisioned given the problems outlined above? Here I agree, Friedman’s article is wanting, just the slightest.

It is not simply an issue of taking lessons learned off the shelf. For one lesson we may have learned (if we are honest) is that methods do not currently exist to address governance issues, address ownership issues equitably, and address market incentives (not to mention MRV) in any kind of an integrated way that will enable the world to be optmistic about REDD, based at least on the current state of dialogue. And note, the word scale has not been mentioned.

One question that I believe is worth asking Friedman or CI or anyone else who is otimistic about the short-term feasibility of REDD, is the follwing:

What exactly are the proven methods/tools that you are proposing to justify the world embarking on this major endeavor? More mundanely, what methods and tools will be employed to facilitate the upscaling of REDD from a local community level say where a principle may be demonstrated, to a “conservation landscape” (like a buffer zone around a national park which may be a key piece in the landscape say, or a multiuse protected area itself including various areas under different protection regimes?

Without serious efforts at this level, the world will delude itself into believing that what appears necessary to do, is in fact inherently, feasible to do. I would wager that at present, we are more often than not confusing optimism with feasability in the REDD conversation.

On a technical level, to address the governance and ownership issues, along with the incentive, benefit sharing and MRV issues, there is a lot of piloting out there that remains doing (for those who contend that REDD is or can be a good thing for people and the planet.)