Negotiators at the UN climate negotiations in Warsaw last week agreed a series of decisions on REDD. Ecosystem Marketplace reported at 20:30 on 22 November 2013, that, “Complete REDD package sails through the COP. It’s now a done deal.”
This is the first of a series of REDD-Monitor posts looking at the negotiations and decisions at COP19 in Warsaw. We’ll start with the decisions themselves. Negotiators in Warsaw came to seven decisions relating to REDD (listed below). The Cancun Mandate for REDD has now been completed.
Later in the week, I’ll look at some of the reactions to the REDD decisions that came out of Warsaw, and at some point I’ll try to work out what all of this might actually mean for people and forests. In the meantime, feedback, comments and suggestions are welcome.
In a press release, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said that,
“Governments have shown their firm commitment to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Warsaw. They have delivered a set of decisions that will make a significant impact in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries and catalyze actions in this critical area of addressing climate change.”
The decision came in the context of the failure in Warsaw to address climate change. The best the UNFCCC could say in its press release at the end of COP19, was that the conference kept governments “on track towards 2015 climate agreement”. The process was not totally derailed, in other words.
Here are the REDD decisions, taken from the UNFCCC website (the titles in bold come from the REDD+ Safeguards Working Group, the titles in UNspeak are from the UNFCCC):
- REDD+ finance (in the COP): Work programme on results-based finance to progress the full implementation of the activities referred to in decision 1/CP.16, paragraph 70 (pdf file, 75 KB);
- Coordination of finance (in the joint SBI/SBSTA): Coordination of support for the implementation of activities in relation to mitigation actions in the forest sector by developing countries, including institutional arrangements (pdf file, 64 KB);
- National forest monitoring systems (SBSTA): Modalities for national forest monitoring systems (pdf file, 55 KB);
- Summary of information on safeguards (SBSTA): The timing and the frequency of presentations of the summary of information on how all the safeguards referred to in decision 1/CP.16, appendix I, are being addressed and respected (pdf file, 19 KB);
- Forest reference emission levels (SBSTA): Guidelines and procedures for the technical assessment of submissions from Parties on proposed forest reference emission levels and/or forest reference levels (pdf file, 85 KB);
- Measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) of forest-related emissions (SBSTA): Modalities for measuring, reporting and verifying (36 kB) (pdf file, 55 KB);
- Drivers of deforestation and forest degradation (SBSTA): Addressing the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation (pdf file, 56 kB).
Thanks Chris – look forward to some analysis about what all this means and if it’s a good deal.
Thank you for compiling this, Chris. It’s been difficult to actually get a sense of what this agreement means.
The way it’s presented in the linked PDFs is still a bit hard to digest, because most of the “substance” actually refers to other/secondary documents.
An *awesome* product, along with the critical analysis that I have no doubt you’ll be conducting soon, would be a summary of each of these domains with the original language of the agreements all in one place, so that a reader does not have to search for 2/CP.13, 4/CP.15, etc. in order to make sense of what they’re reading.
Cheers
@Ashwin Ravikumar (#2) – Thanks for this. I’m probably going to look at each of the decisions in turn and write a post on each. The *awesome* product that you suggest is a good idea. Basically, every time the UNFCCC takes a decision, it has to remind itself that this isn’t the first time its made decisions relating to this topic. This has the unfortunate consequence that as time goes on, things get more and more difficult to understand.
I could provide a list like this (which would include all the previous decisions referred to in the report):
2/CP.13 is the Bali Decision on “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action”, available here.
4/CP.15 is the Copenhagen Decision on “Methodological guidance for activities relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries”, available here.
Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of?
Hi Chris,
Thanks for all your work summarizing the REDD-related decisions from Warsaw (and the analysis to come!). Just wondering if you can provide some info in your analysis on the position of the Papua New Guinean delegation that caused some delays/discontent in the finance negotiations (which I think you covered in previous tweets/retweets). Thanks.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the response! Yeah, that’s similar to what I was envisioning. Really, just having hyperlinks in the decision texts would make things them so much easier to read.
Look forward to hearing more from you on this!