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“Why did America’s leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen and lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests – and runaway global warming?” Good question. It comes from a new article by journalist Johann Hari in The Nation. In the article, “The Wrong Kind of Green“, Hari slams the corruption of US NGOs that receive corporate funding.
Thomas Friedman’s most recent column for the New York Times comes from Tapajós National Forest, Brazil. His trip was organised by Conservation International and the Brazilian government (Friedman doesn’t say who paid). Conservation International could not have chosen a better journalist to back up their pro-carbon market ideology. Friedman, author of The World is Flat and Hot, Flat and Crowded, firmly believes that markets are the solution, regardless of the question. Even better, Friedman is incapable of putting forward an argument. He doesn’t even try. He simply makes statements and assumes that because he’s made them they must be true. His latest offering “Trucks, Trains and Trees“, reveals his genius for taking a complex issue and rendering it as complete gobbledygook.
Last week, an organisation called Avoided Deforestation Partners launched what they blandly describe as “an agreement on policies aimed at protecting the world’s tropical forests”. Under this agreement, “companies would be eligible to receive credit for reducing climate pollution by financing conservation of tropical forests”. It is a loophole allowing industry to write a cheque and continue to pollute. This is another nightmare vision of REDD, similar to that recently proposed by the Australian government. Another similarity with Australia is the support received from what is at first glance a surprising source: big international conservation NGOs. REDD-Monitor received the following anonymous contribution about the agreement. We reproduce it in full in the hope of generating further discussion about this liaison between conservation NGOs and polluting industry. Last month, the following letter was published in Guyana’s Stabroek News. It raises serious questions about President Bharrat Jagdeo’s proposals for REDD in Guyana. The author of the letter, Janette Bulkan, has so far received no response. Yet according to a presentation about Guyana’s “Readiness Plan” on the World Bank’s website, consultation is a “Vital component of the overall plan” and assures us of “Real consultation, not cosmetic exercise”. So when will the multi-stakeholder process start? President Bharrat Jagdeo’s visit to Europe last week was reported enthusiastically in Guyana’s newspapers. Headlines like “The Norway climate deal a significant step forward” and comments such as “Guyana is getting significant backing, including financial support, from Norway, for its model to push saving rainforests as a central platform in the global plan to avert climate change disaster,” both from the Guyana Chronicle, are typical. REDD-Monitor recently received the following anonymous contribution which challenges the claims that President Jagdeo and his consultants McKinsey have been making about Guyana’s forests and questions what is really driving REDD in Guyana. For those who have been to previous UN Climate Conferences, the following will be of no surprise. This afternoon, both the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) failed to discuss REDD, although it was on the agenda for both groups. A dramatic new advertising campaign by US-based NGO Conservation International (CI) depicting the destruction of tropical rainforests as being like diseased human lungs could serve to further deepen confusion about the causes of deforestation. The advertisement, which is the latest offering in CI’s high-profile ‘Lost There – Felt Here’ campaign, could lead the public to believe that poor farmers in tropical countries are to blame for deforestation. |
 
 
 
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