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Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI) and Friends of the Earth Australia put out a press release today strongly criticising an A$30 million Australia-Indonesia REDD project in Sumatra, which was announced last week. WALHI and PPJ (United Farmers of Jambi) have also produced a position paper on the project and REDD in Jambi.
Friends of the Earth released a new report during the recent UN climate negotiations in Bonn: “A Dangerous Distraction – Why offsetting is failing the climate and people: The Evidence“. The report examines the record of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and asks what the effects are likely to be of expanding offsetting as proposed in the UN climate talks, including through proposed offset-based REDD mechanisms. “Offsetting is now a dangerous distraction,” Andy Atkins, Executive director of FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland writes in the introduction to the report. “Negotiators must recognise that it does not work, will not work and that it must be scrapped.” FoE explains that “Offsets are a swap of an emissions cut in developed countries for a cut in developing countries. But action in both is needed.” The report recommends that governments should “Reject plans to introduce REDD offsets, and instead negotiate effective and fair mechanisms to protect the Earth’s forests that do not involve offsetting.” A new report by Friends of the Earth International looks at how forests regulate the climate and how the climate affects forests. The report, written by Ronnie Hall, refers to a considerable body of scientific research and “serves as a call to action to keep fossil fuels in the ground, address the drivers of deforestation by slashing consumption, end trade and investment liberalisation that fuel deforestation, reject monoculture tree plantations and recognise land rights among other preliminary demands to ramp up the pressure on governments on both climate and forest-related decision making,” says FoEI. Download the report by clicking on the image below (PDF document, 1.1 MB). A new report by Friends of the Earth International published today takes a critical look at REDD. The report concludes that “The REDD proposals currently on the table are intended to generate profits for polluters, not to stop climate change. They must be replaced with a commitment to stop deforestation once and for all.” In the run up to the UN’s climate change conference in Poznan next week, Friends of the Earth International will publish a report looking at some of the possible implications of REDD. In the report, FoEI will argue that the plans for REDD are open to abuse by corrupt politicians or even illegal logging companies. An article in today’s Guardian based on FoEI’s upcoming report includes an interview with Joseph Zacune, climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth International. Zacune points out some of the key problems with REDD as it is currently developing, including the risks that Indigenous Peoples and other forest dwelling communities will be impacted by REDD, in the absence of secure land rights, not least because increasing the value of forests will increase the incentive for states and corporations to take over control of the forests. Over the next few weeks, we will make a series of posts of previously issued NGO statements about REDD. The first post is from Friends of the Earth International. This “Accra Briefing” was issued during the UNFCCC Accra Climate Change Talks 2008 (21-27 August 2008) in Ghana. We will post new statements about REDD as they come out. |
 
 
 
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