REDD notes: 25 May 2020

By Chris Lang

Welcome to this new look “REDD in the news” post. Instead of linking to a wide range of posts (many of which were only tangentially related to REDD – and some of which were pure REDD propaganda), I’ll look at a few news items from the previous week with some brief comments. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Rainforest tipping point

New research published in Science finds that intact rainforests will continue to store large amounts of carbon, up to a temperature of 32°C. (Sullivan, M et al., Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests, Science, 22 May 2020.) One-quarter of tropical rainforests are already above this 32°C threshold and store less carbon than forests at cooler temperatures.

Lead author Martin Sullivan explains that at 2°C scenario global warming, tropical forests will be 2.4°C hotter. That means that three-quarters of tropical forests would be above 32°C, resulting in rapid release of carbon into the atmosphere.

This is yet another clear message that to protect rainforests, we urgently have to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels. Rainforests are not a silver bullet to stop the climate crisis.

Norway pays Indonesia US$56 million for a year with more rain

In June 2020, more than ten years after signing a letter of intent for a US$1 billion REDD deal, Norway will pay Indonesia US$56 million – the first “results-based payment” under the deal. The payment is for the period 2016 to 2017.

Øyvind Eggen, Executive Director of Rainforest Foundation Norway welcomes the payment. As does Siti Nurbaya, Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Minister. Obviously, neither of them mentioned the devastating fires in 2015, or the fact that a wetter rainy season reduced the number of fires in 2017, or the fact that lower palm oil prices meant less forest was cleared to make way for new plantations.

And of course neither Eggen nor Nurbaya mention Norway’s oil industry, or the fact that Norway’s oil industry invested US$20 billion last year.

Ever increasing deforestation in Brazil

Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions could increase by 10-20% in 2020, according to a new report by Climate Observatory, Reuters reports. The report states that,

In total, the trend is for 2020 GHG emissions in Brazil to rise. This is because the principal source of emissions, land use change (44% of emissions in 2018), is booming due to the rise in Amazon deforestation, which is advancing despite the pandemic.

Deforestation jumped 55% in the first four months of 2020 compared to the same period last year. A BBC article looks at the threats to the forests in different Amazon countries:

Deforestation, illegal mining, land clearances and wildfires were already at an 11-year high and scientists say we’re fast approaching a point of no return – after which the Amazon will no longer function as it should.

Here, we look at the pressures pushing the Amazon to the brink and ask what the nine countries that share this unique natural resource are doing to protect it.

Messok Dja: “What the conservationists are doing is so bad

Earlier this month, the European Union suspended funding for the proposed Messok Dja National Park in the Republic of Congo. The EU cited “shortcomings” in WWF’s treatment of indigenous people. That’s a euphemism for brutal human rights abuses. Local communities have not given their free, prior and informed consent to the national park. In fact, many are actively opposed to it.

“What the conservationists are doing is so bad. They should leave this land for good.” Dede says what he thinks of @WWF‘s Messok Dja project. @WWF are you listening?#DecolonizeConservation #biodiversity2020 pic.twitter.com/yYEAUS3DzT

— Survival International (@Survival) May 22, 2020

CORSIA: The aviation industry has to shrink

The aviation industry’s proposal for continued expansion, and continued pollution, is known as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). Its aim is to commit the aviation sector to buying carbon offsets in order that it can claim “carbon neutral growth from 2020”.

The baseline for this “carbon neutral growth” illusion was supposed to be the average of emissions in 2019 and 2020. But since the Coronavirus crisis, the number of flights has fallen, and as a result emissions from aviation have fallen. The International Air Transport Association is therefore lobbying the International Civil Aviation Organisation to change the baseline to 2019, so that the industry doesn’t have to buy a lot more carbon offsets.

Obviously, changing the baseline would make a pathetically weak carbon trading scheme even weaker. Even the Environmental Defense Fund is worried. Predictably, though, EDF is not worried because letting the aviation industry off the hook would fry the planet. Instead EDF’s concern is that changing the baseline risks undermining investor confidence:

Re-writing CORSIA’s rules would not only give airlines a free pass to pollute for the next half-decade, it would undermine investor confidence in airlines’ climate commitments at a time when regaining investor confidence is crucial to the sector’s survival. That’s why actors knowledgeable about carbon markets are urging ICAO not to re-write the rules in haste.

Instead of offsetting its emissions and continuing expanding, the aviation industry has to stop polluting. And that means flying a great deal less.

Planting trees won’t stop climate change

That’s the headline of an article on Slate, written by Ted Williams. It’s a very good article. Here’s a sample:

The notion that tree planting is an elixir for what ails the earth is as popular with polluters as it is with nations, a fact that spawned the “carbon offset industry.” Polluters hire third parties—often unseen, uninterviewed, and in other countries—to plant any kind of trees, anywhere.

It’s a very good article apart from this sentence: “Carbon offsetting might work if polluters paid parties to protect existing forests.” Carbon offsetting exists to allow the continued burning of fossil fuels. Williams even acknowledges that offsets are useless in the two sentences before he lost the plot:

According to Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the U.K.’s University of Manchester, the entire carbon offset industry is a “scam.” In 2019, after two decades of carbon offsetting, CO₂ levels peaked at the highest levels in recorded history.

Kevin Anderson’s presentation at the World Responsible Tourism Awards in November 2019, that Williams quotes from, is worth listening to in full. He calls for a target of zero emissions from the tourism industry by 2030. “We certainly need a rapid shift away from aviation,” he says.

“Offsetting is, to be blunt, a scam. It does not work. Once you emit, you are changing the climate.”