The REDD-Green Show at COP 15

Forest Day Highlights at Copenhagen

One of the few areas to gain consensus and make progress at the Copenhagen Climate Conference was the recognition that forest protection and conservation would be a key element in the upcoming agreement. The world loses approximately 13 to 16 million hectares of forests annually; an area larger than the size of England! This loss of forests is responsible for 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. In recognition of the importance of forests, the United States, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and the UK pledged $3.5 billion to a new initiative known as REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) where these developed nations would provide funds to forests preserve in emerging nations.

Pavan Sudhdev, SVP for Deutsche Bank, noted that the annual loss of forests costs the world $2.5 to $4.5 trillion dollars. Beyond the loss of forests, there are additional costs: the loss of watersheds, biodiversity, pollinating bees, and microbes that break down pollution, cost the world several trillion dollars more. These benefits that we get from preserving forests are intact ecosystems are called “ecosystem services”. Since the 1780’s greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere have gone up from 287 ppm (parts per million) to 387 ppm in 2009. One of the main causes of this increase in GHG concentration in our atmosphere is the “terra-forming” of the planet. Land use changes caused by agriculture and urbanization have touched over 50% of the land surface of the planet, leading to rapid deforestation.

One solution to protect nature’s services that we require from ecosystems (clean air, clean water, pollination of crops) is to put a value or price on these services. REDD does just this and mechanisms like REDD are quickly gaining ground as a practical way to ensure “No Net Loss” of the earth’s important “natural capital”. Just as we need enough capital in the bank to live off the interest, clean watersheds and standing forests are the natural capital that we need to preserve in nature’s bank (the earth). It may sound crazy to even talk about finance and nature in the same breath, but this is a major source of discussion in Copenhagen.

REDD is a complex set of mechanisms that allow developing nations to derive a value for standing forests, based upon the carbon sink found in these forests. Without such a value, it is estimated that most of the emerging world’s forests could disappear by 2025. REDD represents an ecosystem service payment arrangement where wealthy or developed nations establish funds to preserve remaining forests in developing countries.

What does this mean for Canada? Canadian forests may be the largest single sink of carbon in the world, even more than the Brazilian rain forests, so they are worth preserving as well. Canada is not however an emerging nation, so REDD doesn’t apply. What does apply, however, is “conservation forestry” carbon offsets, a sort of REDD for developed countries. In the US, the Climate Action Reserve has set out the template for North American conservation forestry carbon offsets, and the proposed US Climate Regulation would rely heavily upon forest carbon offsets.

Settlement and transference or sharing of rights from governments to First Nations in Canada provide a great opportunity to use conservation forest carbon offsets to preserve huge forest carbon sinks and fund sustainable First Nations communities. The BC government recently announced two landmark deals, one with the Coastal First Nations of BC and one with the Haida, both of which allow a sharing of carbon offsets revenue for ecosystem-based management programs. This means that First nations can now participate in preservation of forests, and derive value for managing forests for their standing carbon value as well as their timber value.

Advertisement