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Over the next few weeks, REDD-Monitor will post a series of reports from participants at the UN climate meeting in Durban (COP17). The first comes from Kate Dooley of FERN and Kate Horner of Friends of the Earth US. Their report is extremely critical of what came out of Durban on REDD and in general on addressing climate change.
In June 2011, FERN, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Rainforest Foundation UK produced a report which counters some of the misconceptions about the suitability of carbon markets to finance forest protection.
From 28 February to 2 March 2011, Green Concern for Development and Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria) organised a forum on Climate Change, REDD and Forest Dependent Community Rights in Cross River State, Nigeria. The forum allowed for a debate on different viewpoints on REDD – and allowed communities to respond to government officials.
At the end of the two week-long UN climate change negotiations in Cancun, the Conference of the Parties adopted the Outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (pdf file, (351 kB), which includes (among other things) an outline agreement on REDD.
“There are several red flags and concerns about REDD by indigenous groups and forest dependent peoples as well as mass social movements across the world,” writes Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International from Cancún. A new report from FoEI, released to coincide with the talks in Cancún, highlights these red flags and concerns.
In the film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a weatherman who finds himself living the same day over and over again. The UN climate negotiators have developed a variation on this theme. Once a year they meet and fail to agree on a binding deal that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The variation on Groundhog Day is that they meet in a different city each time.
In August 2010, the Rimba Raya conservation project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia hit the headlines. “Indonesia project boosts global forest CO2 market,” Reuters reported. But there’s a catch. Two companies that are responsible for vast greenhouse gas emissions are involved in the project: Shell and Gazprom.
On 18 August 2010, Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria, the country’s leading environment group) organised a meeting on REDD in Nigeria, together with the Rainforest Research Development and GREENCODE. The meeting produced a statement, signed by 18 NGOs. “Forests and REDD must be out of carbon markets,” is the first of a list of resolutions included in the statement.
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” (pdf file 889 KB).
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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