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Rising Tide North America has launched an online campaign, demanding an end to financial and political relationships between big NGOs and Corporate America. The response (posted below) from Fred Krupp, the President of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), one of the targetted NGOs, arrogantly shrugs off the accusations.
In the 1970s, Richard Sandor was one of the originators of interest rate derivatives. In the 1980s, he made a fortune at Drexel Burnham Lambert, where he developed “collateral mortgage obligations”. In the 1980s and 1990s he helped develop pollution trading. And as founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange, he’s been described as the “father of carbon trading”.
This article was published in the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin 151, February 2010. It is loosely based on a presentation I gave at a workshop in Bogor earlier this month, about local media and REDD. The workshop was organised by the Indonesian local media association ASTEKI and the Samdhana Institute.
Two interviews with Jeff Horowitz, the founder of Avoided Deforestation Partners, were published earlier this month. The interviews reveal a great deal about why AD Partners is so interested in carbon trading. For example, Horowitz estimates that “protecting tropical forests will cut the cost of U.S. climate legislation almost in half – saving Americans billions.” This week, REDD-Monitor asked Horowitz some further questions.
Last month, Ecosystem Marketplace published a report on the state of the forest carbon market. The report, “State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2009: Taking Root & Branching Out“, provides a fascinating glimpse into the upside-down world of carbon trading.
The Ulu Masen project covers an area of 770,000 hectares in Aceh province in the north of Sumatra. The project aims to generate 3.3 million carbon credits a year to finance conservation and development projects for local communities. To find out more, REDD-Monitor interviewed Joe Heffernan of Flora & Fauna International and David Gaveau of the University of Kent in England.
“It’s depressing”, Kevin Conrad told Associated Press, commenting on what happened (or didn’t) in Copenhagen. “It means I’ve got to spend another year … coming to meetings and talking about the same things.” Conrad would probably be even more depressed had he been asked to comment on what is happening in Papua New Guinea.
The Australian government is one of the most enthusiastic promoters of using market mechanisms to finance REDD. The reason? Australia wants REDD to create a loophole in any climate deal large enough to allow emissions to continue in Australia. A new report by Friends of the Earth Australia and Aid/Watch exposes the flaws in the Australian government’s REDD plans.
There are many reasons to oppose carbon trading. The most important is that carbon trading will not address climate change. Rising Tide North America together with Carbon Trade Watch and the Camp for Climate Action is launching a new website, 350 Reasons. The launch date is 24 October 2009, to coincide with the International Day of Climate Action.
In 1988, Applied Energy Services (AES) was constructing a 183 MW coal-fired power plant in Connecticut. AES hired World Resources Institute to find a forestry project to “offset” the 14.1 million tons of carbon that would be emitted over the power plant’s 40 year life. The following year, AES signed an agreement with the NGO CARE to fund an ongoing agroforestry project in Guatemala.
Here are two more REDD-related news items from Papua New Guinea. The first is an article from Ilya Gridneff, a journalist with Australian Associated Press in Port Moresby. Carbon Planet has invested A$1.2 million in projects in PNG.
A couple of months ago, Kevin Conrad commented that “because Papua New Guinea was advocating a regime shift in forests, we had every carbon cowboy in the world descend upon Papua New Guinea.” Unfortunately, it seems that PNG is not the only country in the world that is facing an influx of “carbon cowboys”.
A series of new reports about climate and finance is available on The Corner House website. The papers illustrate the dangers of attempting to find “solutions” to climate change through carbon trading. “There are close parallels between the rampant financial innovations behind the current financial crisis and the innovations feeding carbon trading,” writes Larry Lohmann in a new Corner House Briefing.
Papua New Guinea’s forest carbon trading fiasco is back in the news. The focus is on Kirk Roberts, pictured right, his company Nupan (PNG) Trading Limited and an Australian carbon trading firm, Carbon Planet. “It’s no secret that I am one of the most important foreigners in PNG,” Roberts says. But his opponents have called him “the kingpin of the ‘carbon cowboys’”.
On 16 July 2009, Mekere Morauta, the leader of the opposition in Papua New Guinea, made a statement in Parliament about carbon trading and the role of the Office of Climate Change. Having received no answers to his questions, he produced a new media statement at the end of August 2009, repeating his questions to the prime minister. |
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