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The Australian carbon trading company Shift2Neutral aims to become “the leading neutraliser of carbon emissions in the world”. The company appeared to come closer realising its aim this week when Reuters reported that Shift2Neutral “signed a deal aimed at protecting tropical forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as boosting renewable energy there”.
On Tuesday, 18 May 2010, the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry held a meeting to discuss the country’s activities under the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Invitations went out the previous Friday. No documents were available before the meeting. The meeting lasted less than four hours. The Ministry of Forestry calls this “Public Consultation”.
The Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP) for the Democratic Republic of Congo is to be considered at the UN-REDD Policy Board meeting 17-19 March and at the FCPF 5th Participants Committee meeting 22-25 March. Global Witness, Greenpeace, FERN, Rainforest Foundation Norway and Rainforest Foundation UK have produced a joint statement about DR Congo’s R-PP.
The Congo Basin forest is the second largest in the world after the Amazon. It accounts for one quarter of the world’s remaining tropical forest and covers an area of 1.8 million square kilometres. Clearly, whatever comes out of Copenhagen on REDD has to work in the Congo Basin. Two new reports take a critical look at REDD in the Congo Basin. The first, “Global Climate Politics in the Congo Basin: Unprecedented Opportunity or High-risk Gamble?” is written by Korinna Horta of International Finance, Development and Environment, and published by Heinrich Böll Stiftung. The second, “Why Congo Basin countries stand to lose out from a market based REDD“, is written by Kate Dooley of FERN.
In its most recent newsletter, Down to Earth outlines the increasing concerns about the way REDD is developing in Indonesia, focussing on the role of the World Bank and the Australian government. The World Bank is pushing ahead with its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in Indonesia in spite of a “storm of criticism from civil society organisations at home and internationally”. Of particular concern is the fact that the Bank is going ahead without applying its own safeguard policies. DTE also criticises the Australian government’s focus on carbon offsetting in its bilateral REDD-type schemes in Indonesia.
Between 27 July and 18 August 2009, Guyana’s Stabroek News published a 10-part series of feature articles discussing issues surrounding Guyana’s bid for funds from the World Bank-administered Forest Carbon Partnership Fund (FCPF) and from Norway, and President Bharrat Jagdeo’s Low Carbon Development Strategy. The articles were written by Janette Bulkan, who worked for more than 15 years in the Amerindian Research Unit at the University of Guyana and for three years as Senior Social Scientist with the Iwokrama Rainforest Programme.
For the past five years, the Forest Peoples Programme and other NGOs have been working to persuade the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that funding the oil palm sector in Indonesia is problematic. Given the destruction caused by oil palm plantations, you might think this would be easy. Not so. This is the World Bank, after all. In July 2007, Forest Peoples Programme and 18 other NGOs filed a complaint with the IFC’s Compliance Advisory Ombudsman (CAO) about the IFC’s funding of the palm oil producing and trading company, Wilmar. The recently released CAO report found that “Because commercial pressures dominated IFC’s assessment process, the result was that environmental and social due diligence reviews did not occur as required.”
On 8 July 2009, the Rights and Resources Initiative and Chatham House held a meeting on “Forests, Governance and Climate Change” at the Royal Society in London. Among the speakers was Marcus Colchester of the Forest Peoples Programme, who spoke about the importance of recognising rights in the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. His presentation, “Safeguarding Rights in the FCPF” is available here.
The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) has approved the readiness plans (R-Plans) for Panama and Guyana, reports the Bank Information Center. In doing so the FCPF ignored the advice and recommendations of its own Technical Advisory Panel. The approval demonstrates that the guidelines and standards developed under the FCPF are effectively meaningless. From 15th to 18th June 2009, the members of the governing body of the FCPF, the Participants Committee, met in Montreaux in Switzerland. Three R-Plans were on the agenda at this meeting, from Guyana, Panama and Indonesia. Once their R-Plans are approved, countries can tap into grants up to a maximum of US$3.6 million, including a US$200,000 grant which the Bank can provide up front to support the development of the R-Plan.
Indonesian NGOs SawitWatch and AMAN have written to the Minster of Forestry expressing their concerns about Indonesia’s draft R-Plan (Readiness Plan), due to be considered by the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in June 2009. “We have serious concerns regarding the current draft, the gaps and omissions contained therein, and the time that will be made available to review the revised, final R-Plan,” the NGOs write. The NGOs note that the R-Plan “makes no reference to, nor contains any attempt to comply with, key requirements of the FCPF Charter.” They add that “This is perhaps not entirely surprising as the Guidelines for the Review of R-Plans similarly contains no reference to the Charter, a strange oversight given that the Charter is the overarching legal framework for all activities and operations of the FCPF.” |
 
 
 
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