Introduction to REDD: key issues

1
Introduction to REDD key issues

• FPP presentation
• Helen Tugendhat

2
Purpose of workshop

• Not here to tell you what to do or to think
• Aim is to discuss now the following, which need
  to be discussed again and further in each country
• What REDD is all about
• Your rights under international law
• Other international standards and processes
• Implications of policies on climate and forests
  for your rights
• Risks and opportunities
• National laws and local challenges
• Help you make your own decisions about how to
  deal with these challenges

3
Do we need to know about REDD?

• Yes! REDD can affect your rights, freedoms and
  way of life (for better or worse)
• REDD schemes will fix what can and cannot happen
  inside forests (and other lands?) in Guyana
• like protected areas, REDD schemes can affect the
  rights and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and
  land claims and extensions can be affected

4
why all the talk about carbon?

• When you burn stuff that contains carbon it
  generates a lot of gases, including a gas called
  CARBON DIOXIDE
• Scientists have found out that carbon dioxide and
  other gases can cause global warming (resulting
  in floods, storms, droughts, sea level rise)

5
Where does Carbon dioxide come from?

• More than ¾ comes from industrial pollution
• carbon dioxide from power stations, factories,
  steel plants, chemical plants, big ships, cars
  and machines burning oil and gas etc

6
Where does Carbon dioxide come from? Direct
causes

• Nearly a fifth of CO2 pollution stems from land
  use change, including forest destruction
• when a forest is cut down and burnt for ever and
  the ground is broken up, this can release a lot
  of carbon dioxide into the airso it is a source
  of pollution
• Caused by large-scale industrial commercial
  farming (soya, rice, cattle etc) and

7
Where does Carbon dioxide come from?

• logging
• Industrial tree and palm oil plantations e.g.,
  Indonesia and Malaysia

8
Where does Co2 come from?

• Extraction and burning of fossil fuels
• Mining

9
Underlying causes

• Much forest destruction is driven by
  international trade, foreign investment and
  consumption
• Oil, gas, metals, beef, soya, palm oil, timber,
  piulp, (lipsticks and make up etc, plus many
  foodstuffs)

10
What about indigenous land use?

• Indigenous rotational farming with ample space
  and fallow periods is proven to maintain forest
  cover
• Extraction of lumber and craft materials is
  carbon neutral over time (10-50 years)
• Should not be classed as deforestation nor
  degradation (as may enrich the forest over
  generations)

11
What is REDD? (1)

• It is an abbreviation
• It stands for Reducing Emissions from
  Deforestation and forest Degradation in
  developing countries
• being promoted by Northern and Southern
  governments (including Guyana!) and large
  conservation NGOs to help tackle climate change
  stemming from forest loss
• would set up a new kinds of carbon protected
  areas over large areas of forests the main
  objective is cut emissions and avoid
  deforestation

12
What is REDD? (2)

• International public funds or carbon markets (or
  a combination of these) would "pay" the owners of
  the land to reduce forest clearance and
  (possibly) also protect the forest carbon already
  being stored in trees, plants and soils

13
What else does REDD involve?

• Global and national in scale
• Based on country-level carbon accounting and
  remote sensing (satellites)
• Require strong rules, verification and long-term
  enforcement mechanisms to avoid paying for hot
  air (sanctions)
• Could include conservation and measurement of the
  QUALITY of the carbon stocks

14
RED(D)

• Forest degradation widens the areas that can be
  included in these schemes
• Sustainable USE of the forests is not the same as
  degradation

15
Who will pay for REDD?

• Many industrialised countries and some
  developing countries (including Guyana) propose
  that carbon trading and markets in carbon credits
  should pay for REDD
• Yet the market for REDD credits is still small
  and there is no international framework
• In the meantime, the World Bank, UN and other
  agencies are funding pilot REDD projects in
  countries like Guyana to test different ways
  of doing REDD in practice

16
REDD readiness?

• pilot schemes aim to prepare developing country
  laws, policies and government agencies for REDD
  schemes.
• This is called making them ready for REDD and
  the carbon market in the jargon so that is why
  there is all this World Bank talk about
  Readiness Plans and so on called R-Plans
• Many governments and NGOs seem to be focused on
  getting carbon monitoring and measurement ready
  with little attention to social and rights
  issues
• BUT Readiness is also supposed to clarify
  land rights, establish public consultation
  mechanisms and ensure good governance procedures
• Is this latter work being done?

17
What is carbon trading?

• People buy carbon credits
• It is buying the right to keep polluting
• Called Assigned forestry emission quotas - AAUs

18
A company buys carbon credits instead of reducing
emissions
19
Who wins?

• Buyers Sellers
• Shell Tata Chemicals
• BHP-Billiton ITC
• EDF Plantar
• RWE Votorantim
• Endesa Petrobras
• Rhodia Energy Shri Bajrang
• Mitsubishi Birla
• Cargill Cargill
• Nippon Steel Sasol
• ABN Amro Mondi
• Chevron Hu-Chems Fine Chemical
• Chugoku Electric Power Chhatisgarh Electricity
  Co.

20
Carbon trading impacts on communities?

• May lock communities into a contract for up to 99
  years (so not so similar to balata trade)
• Prices may go up and down
• Scale of benefits depend a lot on the terms of
  contract (costs to communities)
• The larger the forest owned, the more the
  potential benefits to the owner
• Some voluntary standards for carbon trading look
  at social issues (e.g, Climate, Community and
  Biodiversity Alliance (Community carbon standard)

21
Carbon trading

• May lock communities into a contract for up to 99
  years (so not so similar to balata trade)
• Prices may go up and down
• Scale of benefits depend a lot on the terms of
  contract (costs to communities)
• The larger the forest owned, the more the
  potential benefits to the owner
• Some voluntary standards for carbon trading look
  at social issues (e.g, Climate, Community and
  Biodiversity Alliance (Community carbon standard)

22
How would carbon trading work?

• the government would sell the carbon in so-called
  State forests to industrial companies who would
  buy carbon credits to allow them to offset
  their emissions and continue polluting as usual
  under a global system of carbon trading
• ..so it would be a bit like the way the
  government sells timber and mining concessions
  now
• Carbon concession holders would have a strong say
  in how the forest is managed
• concessions could be sold on untitled traditional
  lands without community knowledge or consent
• It is remains unclear how or if communities could
  access direct carbon benefits

23
Position of indigenous peoples

• Many see offsets as a false solution to climate
  change (Anchorage Declaration)
• They say that more attention must be paid to the
  80 and repayment of ecological debt
• Others are engaged in carbon deals (e.g, Embera
  in Panama)
• Many are not informed about carbon trading, but
  they already being approached by carbon companies
  (e.g, Indonesia)
• Opponents of the carbon market propose that REDD
  be funded by public funds (international climate
  fund)

24
Where is REDD at today?

• Governments want a general international
  agreement on REDD by December 2009.with the
  details to be worked out later
• it is still not clear how REDD will be funded!!!
• people fear land grabsas money can be made out
  of standing forests
• Pilot REDD schemes have not clearly determined
  who owns the forests for purposes of entering
  into the trade agreements.. Government are just
  saying they own the forests

25
Who will benefit most from REDD?

• That depends.