Interview with Andy White, Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative, Washington DC, by email.
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Interview with Andy White, Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative, Washington DC, by email. On 24 February 2011, Yayasan Petak Danum, (Water Land Foundation, an NGO in Central Kalimantan), wrote to the Australian Delegation that was then visiting the Australian-funded Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership. Two months later, they received a reply from AusAID, posted in full below in English and in Indonesian. Alcoa. ArcelorMittal. Barrick Gold. BG Group. BHP Billiton. BP Foundation. Bunge. Cargill. Chevron. Coca-Cola. De Beers Group. Giti Tire. Goldman Sachs. Kimberly-Clark. Kraft Foods. McDonald’s. Medco Group. Monsanto. MPX Colombia. Newmont Mining Corporation. Northrop Grumman Corporation. Rio Tinto. Shell. Toyota Motor Corporation. United Airlines. Walmart. Wilmar International. Last week, REDD-Monitor posted episode one of Keuringsdienst van Waarde’s investigation into carbon offsetting. In case you missed it, here it is: “One cent per square metre: Dutch TV programme finds out the cost of Brazil’s rainforest.” Last week, we saw the Dutch TV consumer programme buying a plot of rainforest in Brazil. This week, the Keuringsdienst team looks deeper into the implications of CO2 offsets. This week, a Canadian mining company called East Asia Minerals Corporation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to buy 50% of Carbon Conservation Pty Ltd. East Asia Minerals’ aim is simple: “Through the acquisition of a 50% equity interest in CC, the Company will develop a ‘green’ mining project which will use carbon and biodiversity offsets and the latest in environmentally friendly mining practices.”
Keuringsdienst van Waarde is a Dutch TV consumer programme. In a recent two episode series, they looked into offsetting the greenhouse gas emissions caused by viewers of their programme for one year. Their plan was to offset the emissions by buying up a plot of Brazilian rainforest. The results are fascinating, in turns shocking and funny. The village of Amador Hernández is in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, Chiapas, Mexico. Since last year, the community has been denied medical supplies and the government has suspended emergency transport of seriously ill people from the area. Villagers are concerned that the suspension of medical services is precursor to eviction under a REDD plan that is currently starting up. The headline is the title of a new report by the Italian NGO Campagna per la riforma della Banca Mondiale (CRBM) questions the role of the World Bank in financing responses to climate change. It’s a funny question to ask, particularly given the current state of the global economy (which, just in case you’ve not noticed, hasn’t recovered from a massive meltdown in 2008 – a result of massive deception in the financial markets). On 28 March 2011, Australian TV station Today Tonight Adelaide broadcast a programme about Shift2Neutral and the company’s chairman Brett Goldsworthy. Paul Makin, a journalist with Today Tonight Adelaide interviewed Brett Goldsworthy in his office in a shopping centre in Westleigh, a suburb of Sydney. “Brett Goldsworthy is a one-man band of sorts,” says Makin in the programme. Last week, a court in San Francisco ruled against California’s cap and trade programme. Here’s how California Watch reported the decision: “Activists are celebrating a victory in their lawsuit against the state’s Air Resources Board, halting the start of the landmark climate change law, at least momentarily.” In the Road Runner cartoons, the coyote chases the road runner off the cliff and keeps going until he looks down. Once he realises what’s happened, he falls. Proponents of trading the carbon stored in forests are currently running coyote fashion as fast as they can towards the edge of the cliff. A new report from the Munden Project suggests they should stop and take a look where they are heading. A new report from FERN and the Forest Peoples Programme concludes that the safeguards put in place by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership (FCPF) are inadequate. The report looks at eight Readiness Preparation Proposals (R-PPs) submitted to the FCPF and finds that FCPF safeguards are not clear and do not conform to the World Bank’s own safeguards. With apologies for the delay, here’s a posting for International Women’s Day (8 March 2011). A group of organisations has produced an invitation to sign on to a position statement on Women and REDD. Australia has committed A$30 million to the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership (KFCP) in Indonesia. Recently, questions from Senator Christine Milne (of the Green Party) in the Australian Parliament were (sort of) answered by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade. |
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