Climate

By Christine Pendzich

Every week, the media reports new stories on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. In our mind's eye, we see coal-fired power plants, more than 250 million vehicles on America's roads, and wasteful energy habits formed by generations of reliance on cheap and abundant fossil fuels.

To complete the picture, however, we need to bring forests into focus.

Many of the world's endangered species depend on forests for survival, as do 60 million indigenous people. Forests provide us with food, medicine, timber, and other wood products. They purify the air we breathe, preserve our watersheds, and prevent erosion of our soils.

Forests are also one of the largest terrestrial stores of carbon. Deforestation and degradation of the Earth's forests release this carbon into the atmosphere, contributing as much as 20 percent of all global carbon emissions, more than any single source other than the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity and transport. Forests are the largest source of carbon emissions in many developing countries.

Where Forest and Climate Policies Meet

WWF is advocating for the inclusion of forests in the post-Kyoto international climate agreement under an approach called REDD – Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. REDD will set the global framework for national and local policies that keep forest-based emissions down and preserve the tropical "greenbelt" encircling the Earth along the equator. This belt encompasses three of the largest remaining rain forests, in the Amazon, the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia.

A number of conditions are necessary for REDD to work effectively: Emissions reduction targets must be established against scientifically measured baselines. Financial and technical assistance must be provided to help developing countries meet the targets. And REDD initiatives must not reduce the imperative for emissions cuts in the energy sector.

Perhaps most important, incentives must be developed to ensure that, as countries with high deforestation rates implement REDD initiatives, logging does not just move to countries that have lower deforestation rates.

If the next global treaty provides clear incentives for avoided deforestation, countries and communities in the world’s tropical forest greenbelt may enjoy significant benefits in the form of sustainable financing for protecting and effectively managing their forests.

Moving from Treaty to Action

Across the Amazon, in Borneo and Sumatra, and in the Congo Basin, WWF is focused on three critical areas related to REDD. First, we work with national and regional leaders, partner organizations, and local communities to build local capacity for measuring and managing forests and the carbon stores they provide. Second, we help them capitalize on funding opportunities for REDDrelated initiatives.

Third, in selected locations, such as the Kampar Peninsula of Sumatra, we implement early action plans for REDD initiatives. In addition to delivering direct local results, our projects allow us to test approaches, identify best practices, and create models for replication in other countries. A key characteristic of these projects is that we involve local and indigenous communities.

To this end, WWF is collaborating with Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and others to build REDD capacity. We have developed a training program that covers the technical and policy contexts, carbon markets, social and economic considerations, and national REDD programs. Training was held in Bali in September, with sessions set for Lima this fall and the Congo Basin in 2009.

Peru: Working Toward a National REDD Program

A mid-sized country with a large and highly biodiverse forest estate, Peru ranks within the top 10 countries worldwide in deforestation rates, emitting an estimated 127 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year. The good news is that Peru has in place the political will, technical capacity and institutional readiness to make significant progress in developing the first national REDD program for a country of its size. Our collaboration with regional and national governments, civil society, and other partners is helping to make this happen.

In the coming year, we will help Peru lay the cornerstones of a comprehensive REDD effort. This foundational work will include an analysis of the country’s legal, institutional and policy framework; a financing strategy; early results from technical studies measuring carbon baselines; preliminary lessons learned from pilot projects; and an official statement of support from relevant government agencies.

Our aim is to have this work ready for presentation at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. This will advance negotiations toward a global climate treaty by showing that countries can rein in deforestation and create economic incentives to do so, and can make a real and sustainable difference in slowing climate change.

Dzanga-Sangha: An Early Action REDD Project

WWF is launching an early action REDD project in the Dzanga-Sangha Dense Forest Special Reserve in the Central African Republic. Our goal is to eliminate logging from the core reserve area by replacing revenues from logging concessions with revenues from emissions reduction credits to be sold on the voluntary carbon market.

We will be analyzing the potential reduction in carbon emissions that can be gained by eliminating future logging activities within the reserve and establishing a baseline of greenhouse gas emissions and loss of carbon stores from recent timber extraction. These analyses will help us determine the market value of reduced emissions. The first stage of this pilot project will be completed prior to the UN climate meeting in Copenhagen so that it can inform negotiations related to REDD compensation and serve as a model for similar projects in other countries.

New Funding to Support REDD

WWF has set a bold goal of zero net deforestation and emissions from deforestation by 2020. Because major new resources are needed to achieve this goal we are working to develop both public and market-based streams of funding.

We are tracking the many multilateral and bilateral government funds being set up to address climate change, such as those at the Norwegian Forest Fund and the World Bank. Our goal is to ensure that they include funding for REDD and are tied to sound standards for emissions reductions. We are also working to foster the development of international markets for forest carbon credits.

To ensure the integrity and effectiveness of both types of funding, we are advancing standards for rigorous carbon accounting practices, environmental and social safeguards, and corporate responsibility practices. This work continues our long history with international standards and certification mechanisms.

Saving Forests and Slowing Climate Change

The rising concern with climate change and the evolution of carbon markets offers an unprecedented chance to raise the value of the world’s remaining highly biodiverse forests and increase incentives to conserve them. WWF’s work on REDD is a major new effort that takes advantage of this historic opportunity. It also contributes to our goal of ensuring that people, species and natural places around the world will benefit from slowing the speed of climate change.