Safeguards. Reference levels. Non-carbon benefits. Drivers of deforestation and degradation. Non-market-based approaches. Measuring, reporting and verifying. Results-based finance. Adequate and predictable support. Institutional arrangements.
Yes, it’s the REDD negotiations at the UNFCCC. Again. Between 3-13 June 2013, UN climate change negotiators are meeting in Bonn, Germany.
Philippines negotiator Tony La Viña comments on Facebook, below a photograph of the Maritim Hotel where the meetings are taking place:
Here we are again. It was in the Maritim in Bonn where we negotiated most of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Every year since then we meet here at least once, sometime twice a year. Now, 16 years later, we are negotiating yet again a new climate change agreement which will hopefully be adopted in Paris in 2015.
REDD, of course, was not part of the Kyoto Protocol. It may well be part of the Paris agreement. Before the meetings in Bonn started, CIFOR produced a useful overview of the issues relating to REDD to be discussed in Bonn.
For those of us not in Bonn, IISD Reporting Services provides daily coverage of the meetings including a new video news service “ENB Video: In the Corridors”. On 7 June 2013, in Bonn, a workshop took place on the need to improve the coordination of the implementation of support for REDD+. ENB reported on the meeting:
ENB’s video includes the following comments on the REDD negotiations in Bonn. It’s difficult to detect any hint of the urgency of either the climate change crisis or the continued rate of deforestation.
Keith Anderson, Switzerland:
“We just completed a REDD joint SBI/SBSTA workshop. What we were trying to do is get an ample view of what parties’ views were on coordination and improved coordination for support of actions on REDD as well as the barriers and the functions that we would need in order to improve the coordination.”
“[REDD is] a chance for developed countries to help developing countries to reduce their emissions and we believe that the largest part of the developing country emissions, since they are agricultural and forest economies, will come from the land sector. So for us it’s a very high priority.”
Federica Bietta, Papua New Guinea:
“We didn’t create the problem of climate change but we’re willing to do something for it. Voluntary, we’re willing to be part of the solution. And so being part of the solution, through the forest, and if we have positive incentives to save them, we’ll be able to be part of the solution. So the idea was really not to just chain and fence the forest, because developing country, the majority live there, in PNG, six million of people, five are living in the forest.”
Felipe Ferreira, Brazil:
“We are within reach of achieving a meaningful outcome of REDD+ that will outline the architecture for results-based payments and with this we can start doing meaningful action on the ground.”
Christine D. Dragisic, USA:
“We need strong insitutions. We need strong national and local systems that can implement REDD+ effectively and transparently. We need capacity in countries to monitor and implement and manage finances. And more than anything I think we need to see progress on the ground. So I think we’re looking to use our support in a coordinated way to do this and I think we’re very encouraged by some of the results that are starting to come out.”
Diego Pacheco, Bolivia:
“Bolivia has launched, has enacted the Law of Mother Earth. In this law we have established a specific mechanism which is the joint mitigation and adaptation mechanism for the integral and sustainable development of forests. So we are in a process of dialogue with the REDD+ to really capture the joint mitigation and adaptation approach as a new alternative for reduction of emissions.”
Josefina Brana-Varela, WWF International:
“We hope to see parties finishing the design elements of REDD and delivering a package of methodological issues while we strike a balance of commitments in the financial discussions. So we can ensure that there are commitments under submission to support REDD implementation in the field.”
It seems to us who are forest dwellers that these seemingly endless discussions are just creating more carbon dioxide. We have monitored our forests since 1994 and we know how much carbon has been sequestered by tghem. We have not done any degregadation and if we cut a tree we report it in our computations. Just arrange to hook us up with a company that is creating that much carbon dioxide and let them pay us for cleaning up their atmospheric garbage. It is as simple as that.
We are a community of indigenolus people and we have ioneered social forestry in the Philippines.
We spend long hours talking when we have a case to solve but we finish in a day or two. We are considered Indigenous People but we make our people made decisions and stick to them This endless talk-talk-talk is something I cannot explain to our leaders.