Skip to content
Menu
REDD-Monitor
  • Start here
  • REDD in the news
  • About REDD-Monitor
  • REDD: An introduction
  • Contact
REDD-Monitor

Guest Post: The “New York Declaration” on forests – a smokescreen for Norway’s oil industry?

Posted on 12 September 201425 June 2019
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Email this to someone
email

Earlier this week, REDD-Monitor wrote about a project called “Creating demand for REDD+”. The three-year project is funded to the tune of US$5 million by Norway and is run by two Washington-based think tanks, the Center for Global Development and Climate Advisers.

REDD-Monitor subsequently received the following anonymous contribution. It is posted here in full:

The “New York Declaration” on forests – a smokescreen for Norway’s oil industry?

Many governments, NGOs large corporations and other agencies have been contacted in recent weeks by Charles McNeill, Senior Policy Advisor at the UN Development Programme, asking them if they would sign on to a “high-level declaration” on the protection of forests, which is to be launched in two weeks’ time at the UN Climate Summit in New York. The draft declaration pledges, among other things, to “collectively committing to halving the loss of natural forests globally by 2020” and “supporting the private sector goal of eliminating deforestation” from products such as palm oil and soya, also by 2020. According to McNeill, this apparently worthy-sounding initiative has come about through the efforts of a “number of countries and companies, with guidance from several NGOs and indigenous peoples groups”, who, he says, are seeking a “shared vision” for heads of government, business CEOs, NGO leaders and indigenous peoples to endorse at the Summit.

What is not explained in McNeill’s solicitation is that this so-called New York Declaration actually originates from a US think tank which is under contract from the Norwegian government to “create demand” for REDD and to promote the concept of a global scheme for forest protection to offset the burning of oil and other fossil fuels. As the New York Times revealed this week, Washington DC-based Center for Global Development (CGD) has a three-year, $5m contract with the Norwegian government to promote REDD+, including to “convene experts and thought leaders” and to “mobilize high-level elites to engage in the [REDD] policy process”. The aim of all this lobbying and public relations is to “contribute to a major increase in finance for REDD” and specifically a “sharp shift towards results-based finance for REDD+”. “Results-based financing” is a euphemistic term which effectively means purchasing carbon credits from projects which claim to have reduced carbon emissions from deforestation, which can then be used to offset continued industrial pollution elsewhere.

This has caused consternation in some DC circles, especially as the CGD appears not to have complied with US rules requiring registration of agencies acting as lobbyists on behalf of foreign governments. However, the Norwegian government’s contract is not only with CGD, but also with Climate Advisers, another DC-based think tank that specializes in “cost-effective strategies to strengthen climate action and improve lives.” And it is Climate Advisers who prepared the New York Declaration on forests which is now being circulated at high political levels for sign-on. A dozen governments have already put their name to the declaration, including those of the UK, Germany, Indonesia and Peru, as well as of course Norway itself.

It is surely no coincidence that the Declaration would serve precisely the purpose which the Norwegian government is paying CGD and Climate Advisers, its author, to achieve. Signatories pledge to “agree in 2015 to reduce emissions from deforestation … as part of the post-2020 global climate agreement” and to “reward countries and jurisdictions that, by taking action, reduce forest emissions – particularly through public policies to scale-up payments for verified emissions reductions and private sector sourcing of commodities”. In other words, the Declaration is encouraging governments to include forestry offsets in a future global carbon market, and to put public money now into buying carbon credits from REDD+ programs, exactly as Norway’s contract with CGD and Climate Advisers stipulates. It is widely known that the government of Norway has been very active in trying to persuade other governments along this route for several years, even though this is a highly controversial, uncertain and potentially very expensive means of attempting to tackle deforestation or reverse climate change, and has been increasingly challenged by experts.

As the New York Times astutely noted in relation to the CGD controversy, any scheme to allow global trading of forest carbon offset credits, such as being promoted in the Declaration, would benefit Norway as “Slowing deforestation could buy more time for Norway’s oil companies to continue selling fossil fuels on the global market…”

It is perhaps unsurprising that Norway has been so active in promoting REDD+ offsets for fossil fuels as a major component in any new climate agreement – and is recruiting the likes of CGD and Climate Advisers to do its bidding in Washington and New York – when oil and gas accounts for over half of export revenues and nearly a third of the earnings which the Norwegian government relies on to support the country’s globally top-of-the-league living standards and social security. However, it does raise very serious questions about how much influence Norway is exerting in climate policy – especially regarding REDD+, how it is going about this, and what interests actually lay behind its strategy. It is particularly striking that, perhaps unwittingly, the offices of UNDP – which is supposed to act to the benefit of the world’s poorest – might, by promoting the New York Declaration on forests, actually be doing the bidding of the Norwegian oil industry and supporting the continued well-being of the world’s most cosseted people.

Some of the signatories to the Declaration might be looking with fresh eyes at what they have signed up to…

 


Full Disclosure: REDD-Monitor has received funding from Rainforest Foundation Norway, which in turn receives money from the Norwegian government. Click here for all of REDD-Monitor’s funding sources.
 

Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Email this to someone
email

Related

2 thoughts on “Guest Post: The “New York Declaration” on forests – a smokescreen for Norway’s oil industry?”

  1. Robert Hii says:
    12 September 2014 at 5:40 pm

    Thanks for posting this anonymous contribution.

    It makes a lot of sense. Honestly though, does Norway really think developing countries like Indonesia only need a few more sticks and palm leaves to patch up the houses where they live in? Whats a billion dollars when export revenues from palm oil,timber and coal bring in way more than that?

  2. C. Oriehnip says:
    26 September 2014 at 5:24 am

    Greatest smokescreen ever for Brazil’s domestic forest policy. The anti-indigenous peoples rights government is siding with the worst of the agriculture’s world, as shown by The Guardian recently http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/05/brazil-chainsaw-queen-katia-abreu-amazon-deforestation
    As Brazil did not sign this, they argue that the problem was the method as told by an anonymous here. Hard to believe.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

SUBSCRIBE!

Enter your email address to receive notification of new posts.

Recent themes
Natural Climate Solutions
WWF's conservation scandals
Aviation and offsetting
Conservation Watch

REDDisms

“All we’ve done is agree there’s a problem. We agreed that in 1992 [at the Earth summit in Rio] and re-agreed it again in Paris [at the 2015 climate accord]. We haven’t acknowledged what is required to solve it. Promises like Paris don’t mean much, it’s wishful thinking. It’s a hoax that governments have played on us since the 1990s.”

— James Hansen, ex-NASA scientist, June 2018

Recent Posts

  • Launched at COP25, IETA’s Markets for Natural Climate Solutions is greenwash for the oil industry
  • REDD in the news: 2-8 December 2019
  • Radio 4’s Anatomy of a Fraud: Featuring World Commodity Trading, Heritage FA, Eco-Synergies, IGL Labs UK, Diffraction Diamonds DMCC, Diffraction Limited, Citadel Trustees, and World Gemological Institute
  • Northern Powerhouse Developments: Another “investment” scheme promoted by Property Frontiers collapses
  • REDD in the news: 25 November – 1 December 2019

Recent Comments

  • Marksie on Bar Works: The return of Renwick Haddow
  • Chris Lang on Bar Works: The return of Renwick Haddow
  • Chris Lang on James Moore found guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy in Renwick Haddow’s Bar Works investment scam
  • Fabio on Bar Works: The return of Renwick Haddow
  • chris cooke on James Moore found guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy in Renwick Haddow’s Bar Works investment scam

Issues and Organisations

AB 32 Boiler rooms Bonn California Cancun Can REDD save ... ? Carbon accounting Carbon Credits Carbon Offsets CDM Conservation International COP21 Paris Deforestation FCPF FERN Financing REDD Forest definition Fossil fuels FPP Friends of the Earth Greenpeace Guest post ICAO Illegal logging Indigenous Peoples Natural Climate Solutions NGO statements Plantations Poznan R-M interview REDD+ Partnership REDD and rights REDD in the news Risk RSPO-Watch Safeguards Sengwer Sustainable Forest Management The Nature Conservancy Ulu Masen UN-REDD UNFCCC World Bank WRM WWF

Countries

Australia Bolivia Brazil Cambodia Cameroon Canada China Colombia Congo Basin region DR Congo Ecuador El Salvador European Union France Germany Guatemala Guyana Honduras India Indonesia Kenya Laos Luxembourg Madagascar Malaysia Mexico Nicaragua Nigeria Norway Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Republic of Congo Sweden Tanzania Thailand Uganda UK Uncategorized United Arab Emirates USA Vietnam West Papua
©2019 REDD-Monitor | Powered by WordPress and Superb Themes!