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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.
“If you wondered whether capitalism could ever produce the perfect weapon of its own destruction, try this heady mix of carbon fuels, the trade in financial derivatives, and more than a dash of neo-colonialism, and boom!” This is Professor Stefano Harney, University of London, commenting on a new book: “Upsetting the Offset: The Political Economy of Carbon Markets”. The book, which can be downloaded (or ordered) here, is edited by Steffen Böhm and Siddhartha Dabhi from the University of Essex, UK. The book includes case studies and critiques from around the world, “showing how the scam of carbon markets affects the lives of communities.” It suggests alternatives to carbon markets and includes a chapter by me, looking at some of the problems behind trading forest carbon.
In 2004, a group of people’s movements and independent organisations met in Durban in South Africa. The meeting produced the Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading, which strongly opposes carbon trade: “We denounce the further delays in ending fossil fuel extraction that are being caused by corporate, government and United Nations’ attempts to construct a ‘carbon market’, including a market trading in ‘carbon sinks’.” During the Copenhagen meeting, the Durban Group produced a new statement opposing REDD: “No REDD! No REDD Plus!”. (Also available in Spanish, below.)
In the lead up to Copenhagen, letters, articles and reports about REDD are coming out thick and fast. Before looking at them, here’s some bad news. In 2005, a drought meant that in that year the Amazon rainforest did not sequester its usual 2 billion metric tons of CO2. It also released 3 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere from dying trees. The total 5 billion additional tons of CO2 is greater than the combined emissions of Europe and Japan. This year there is another drought in the Amazon. The photograph on the right was taken last weekend by Paulo Whitaker. It shows a fisherman paddling through dead fish that died because of lower water levels on the on the Manaquiri River, a tributary of the Amazon River.
A few weeks ago, the Jakarta Post reported the dangers of “fake carbon brokers” in Indonesia. “They offer pledges that say the regencies or cities will get a lot of money from REDD projects but they provide no programs,” Wandojo Siswanto from the Forestry Ministry told the Jakarta Post. “Regents and mayors in Kalimantan and Sumatra have been offered such promises. But … not a single cent goes to local administrations.” A new report by Human Rights Watch highlights another risk associated with carbon trading in Indonesia: corruption. HRW estimates that every year, the Indonesian government loses US$2 billion as a result of corruption, illegal logging and mismanagement. Indonesia stands to gain billions of REDD dollars, but as HRW research consultant Emily Harwell points out, “The solution to corruption and poor governance is not more money.”
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. The report, “What a Scam! Australia’s REDD offsets for Copenhagen,” which is endorsed by WALHI and Serikat Petani Indonesia, concludes that “The Australian REDD offset model breaches Australia’s international obligations, and is a scam: it is not aimed at reducing deforestation, but at creating a source of cheap credits for increased emissions in Australia.”
At a recent conference in Oxford, Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, launched a new report that warns that we could see a global increase in temperatures of 4°C as soon as 2055. Climate change could accelerate so rapidly because of feedback loops which are triggered by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and which in turn will cause new emissions. “Four degrees of warming, averaged over the globe, translates into even greater warming in many regions, along with major changes in rainfall,” Betts said. An increase of 4°C global average temperature would mean a rise of up to 15°C at the North Pole. Sea levels would rise by up to 1.4 metres. Monsoon rains could fail. At the conference, two scientists looked specifically at the implications of 4°C warming for the Amazon rainforests: Yadvinder Malhi, a Professor of Ecosystem Science at Oxford University; and Wolfgang Cramer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
Another week, another series of UN climate talks. This time in Barcelona. This is the last week of negotiations before COP-15 in Copenhagen. Perhaps not surprisingly, things are not looking good. Rich countries ground the negotiations to a halt by refusing to agree to targets under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. At one point, African negotiators walked out refusing to discuss any other issues (including REDD) until rich countries agreed deep cuts in emissions. In support, civil society organisations set up an impromptu human shield against the killing of Kyoto targets and demanded at least 40% emission reductions with no offsets by 2020.
It really hasn’t been a good few weeks for The Nature Conservancy. First Greenpeace slammed TNC’s Noel Kempff project in Bolivia. Now investigative journalist Mark Schapiro reports from Brazil’s Atlantic Coast about TNC’s Guaraqueçaba project. Schapiro’s article in Mother Jones and a series of films on Frontline/World, document the impacts of the project. “You’ll see Guaraqueçaba promoted on the Nature Conservancy’s website as an example of corporate partnerships that make ‘an invaluable contribution to the preservation of the planet’s biodiversity,’” Schapiro writes. “What you won’t see is what the companies get out of the deal: the potentially lucrative rights to the carbon sequestered in the trees.” Neither will you see any mention of the impacts on local communities on TNC’s website. |
 
 
 
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