REDD/REDD+: INTRODUCTION
FORESTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE - Tropical forests within developing countries cover about 15% of the world’s land surface1 and contain about 18% of the global carbon emission. But they are being rapidly degraded and deforested resulting in the emission of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Roughly 13 million hectares – an area the size of Peru – are converted to other land uses each year. This loss accounts for a fifth of global carbon emissions, making land cover change the second largest contributor to global warming. The conservation of native forests therefore plays a vital role in any initiative to combat climate change.
FORESTS ARE HOME TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES - Forest resources directly support the livelihoods of 90% of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty and are home to nearly 90% of the world's terrestrial biodiversity. Deforestation also threatens biodiversity and the livelihoods of more than 60 million Indigenous Peoples who are entirely dependent upon forests. Forests have not only provided shelter, fuel and food to Indigenous Peoples, they also form the basis of many cultures, and have various spiritual and cultural values that cannot be expressed in monetary values. Indigenous and forest-dependent peoples have been and continue to be the primary guardians of forests. Many of the forests that are looked at for utilization in REDD mechanisms are located within Indigenous Peoples’ ancestral lands and territories who have inalienable, collective rights over their lands, territories and forests.
MORE THAN JUST CARBON - At local to global scales, forests provide essential ecosystem benefits beyond carbon storage – such as watershed protection, water flow regulation, nutrient recycling, rainfall generation, disease regulation and providing habitat for a variety of species and an overwhelming storehouse of a rich biodiversity. Old growth forests also soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – offsetting anthropogenic emissions. Protecting tropical forests has a double-cooling effect, by reducing carbon emissions and maintaining high levels of evaporation from the canopy. IEN wants to note that deforestation is not only less responsible for climate change than the burning of fossil fuels; it is also related to climate change in a very different way. Even if approximately 18% of the carbon dioxide being emitted today does indeed come from deforestation, it does not follow that deforestation is 18% responsible for climate change. The carbon dioxide molecules resulting from deforestation may be chemically identical to those coming from burning of fossil fuels, but the two are climatologically different. Carbon released from deforestation does not increase the total amount of carbon being exchanged among the atmosphere, the oceans, soils, forests, and so on. Carbon released from fossil fuels, on the other hand, does increase this above-ground carbon pool – adding to the difficulty of keeping excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
THE CAUSES OF DEFORESTATION - The causes of deforestation are multiple and complex and vary from country to country. While millions of people still cut down trees to make a living for their families, a major cause of deforestation is now industrial logging, illegal logging, and conversion of forests to agricultural products. Local pressures arise from communities using forests to provide sources of food, fuel and farmland. The drivers of the demand for agricultural land vary globally. In Africa, it is primarily small-scale subsistence farming. In South America, it is large-scale farming enterprises, producing beef and soya for export markets. In South East Asia, the driver is somewhere between the two, with palm oil, coffee and timber as the main products. Demands of the North for the import of timber are also a driver of deforestation.
WHAT IS REDD and REDD+? - The basic idea behind Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) is simple: Because preserving forests is good for the climate, governments, companies or forest owners in the South would be paid for keeping forests standing instead of cutting them down. REDD uses market/financial incentives in order to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation and forest degradation. The main finance mechanism behind REDD is the carbon-market mechanism. Carbon markets buy and sell permits to pollute called “allowances” or “carbon credits”. There are two types of carbon markets: emissions trading, called cap and trade, and offsets. Using forests as carbon offsets, allows Northern polluters to buy their way out of reducing their emissions. Tying REDD into a broader system of carbon trading and offset regimes would allow developed countries or polluting corporations to offset their own emissions and meet emissions reductions targets.
REDD credits sold in carbon markets are called “offsets” because they allow offsetting emissions increases by those who buy them. The purchaser—a coal or oil company, electric power plant, or cement manufacturer in an industrialized nation – is buying the right to emit more tons of CO2 than they would otherwise have been permitted.
REDD-plus (REDD+) is part of the REDD regime but refers to a broad range of conservation, land uses and land use changes in developing countries that enhance existing forests and increase forest cover. This broad interpretation could be used to include the conservation of existing old growth forests, but it could also be used to promote the ‘enhancement of carbon stocks,’ which is shorthand for a range of measures that includes the massive expansion of monoculture tree plantations. This definition of REDD+ could even be used to promote the use and expansion of risky untested technologies including genetically-engineered trees.
READ: Declaration of the Indigenous Peoples of the World at COP 17
Indigenous Peoples and Allies Call for a Moratorium on REDD+
UNFCCC COP 16 GOALS ON REDD+ - Under the Bali Action Plan (adopted at the UNFCCC COP13, 2007), a planning process was established for a REDD mechanism to be included in a post-2012 framework by the COP15 in Copenhagen. This did not happen. United States and other Annex 1 countries are hoping for an internationally legally binding agreement launching REDD+ activities at Cancun COP16 as paramount for a global deal on climate change.
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INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RED ROAD TO COPENHAGEN and Beyond Copenhagen
IEN ACTION PLATFORM FOR COP 15 and COP+
The goal of the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009 is to finish negotiations and decide what the world will do when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) expires in 2012. The Bali Action Plan (also known as the Bali Roadmap adopted at the UNFCCC COP 13 in Bali, Indonesia 2007) agreed upon a comprehensive 2-year process in order to reach an agreed outcome and adopt a decision at COP 15. The Plan is based upon “a shared vision for long-term cooperative action (LCA), including a long-term global goal for emission reductions, to achieve the ultimate objective of the Convention, in accordance with the provisions and principles of the Convention, in particular the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and taking into account social and economic conditions and other relevant factors”. The Bali Roadmap includes measures for preserving tropical rainforests and helping poor countries adapt to a green economy. The agreement leaves many contentious issues unresolved. The plan simply lays out a process to negotiate the emissions targets to succeed the limits set by Kyoto Protocol (KP) in its first commitment period, which expires in 2012. It also provides a platform to begin talks to address growing concerns about adaption, deforestation and facilitating transfer of clean technologies to developing countries. There is a push for countries to finish these negotiations at Copenhagen for an effective, comprehensive and equitable climate change regime beyond 2012 (called the 2nd commitment period). They want to make sure there is no gap between the 1st and 2nd commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
At the conclusion of the Barcelona Climate Talks in November 2009, there was hope by governmental negotiators and some NGOs that an international legally binding agreement could still be negotiated in Copenhagen especially with lobbying pressure and civil society actions and activism as part of an inside-outside strategy.. The Danish government had proposed a political agreement be achieved in Copenhagen as a way to salvage something in case a binding agreement was not agreed upon. At a recent summit meeting between U.S. president Obama and the leadership of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in November 2009, Obama firmed the U.S. position to delay a formal agreement until next year 2010. In a meeting with China, Obama and China agreed to come to Copenhagen to set emission targets within a political accord, but not as part of a formal binding agreement. However, the developing countries of G77 are coming to Copenhagen demanding an international legally binding agreement be achieved, focusing on amending the Kyoto Protocol.
There has been an expressed need for Indigenous Peoples from the South and North to have our own Action Plan – our own Road Map to Copenhagen. The Bali Action Plan has no mention of Indigenous Peoples or recognition of our collective rights as indigenous peoples, including our rights to lands, territories and resources, and to ensure our full and effective participation including free prior and informed consent on all matters relating to climate policy at sub-national, national and international levels. There is no recognition of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK) that could be useful in mitigation and adaptation measures. We recognize the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) that has been active every year operating as the Indigenous Caucus within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its subsidiary bodies. Since the 4th Conference of Parties (COP 4) of the UNFCCC, Indigenous Peoples have participated in the UNFCCC meetings. The IIPFCC, the Indigenous Environmental Network and other Indigenous groups from every region of Mother Earth have been active in these annual international meetings providing guidance to this Indigenous Peoples Road Map to Copenhagen and Beyond Copenhagen.
Some of the core elements being discussed in Copenhagen COP 15:
• Shared Vision
• Carbon emissions reduction targets by industrialized countries (Annex 1).
• Adaptation
• Clean Development Mechanisms Beyond the Kyoto Protocol
• Measures to reduce deforestation - REDD.
• Moratorium on new fossil fuel development
• Other Platform positions
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