Poznan climate change
Should forests be part of the next climate protocol, should there be a parallel protocol or should forestry-based carbon credits remain a voluntary option?
These and many more questions were up in the air at the COP 14 gathering in Poznan earlier this month. Consensus seemed to exist on only one point: the scientific evidence on the importance of forests in climate change is almost unequivocal, and the need for the global community to act now is critical.
Avoided forest destruction and degradation
One of the hot forest topics in Poznan was the so-called REDD mechanism (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) in developing countries. Global deforestation is estimated to account for close to 20% of the total carbon emissions.
REDD represents a mechanism to halt forest destruction significantly by potentially chaneling large amounts of money into the conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests. However , while it seems that the concept of REDD is supported broadly, many pitfalls exist. The need to ensure benefits for local people and biodiversity conservation are some of the major issues that urgently need to be built into the REDD mechanism.
Brazil has already presented an ambitious plan to significantly reduce its carbon emissions within one decade, based on cutting the deforestation rate of the Amazon Rainforest by 70%.
The voluntary forest-based carbon market
While REDD is being piloted and discussed, the voluntary market for forest-based climate initiatives has already emerged, and several standards are offered for different forestry-related projects.
Verification systems are available within afforestation/reforestation, increasing carbon stock in existing forest, and avoided deforestation.
These schemes are setting up mechanisms to address the following key issues:
- Additionality: Ensuring that the project makes a real difference compared to the situation without the project activities
- Permanence: Safeguards to secure that the avoided or reduced CO2 emissions are actually permanent; and
- Leakage: Taking into consideration that improving in one area may lead to worsened conditions in a neighboring area.
It is today already possible to use third-party validation tools to document the positive effect that forest management initiatives can have on climate change, and the generated CO2 credits can be sold on the voluntary carbon market.
