Major concern has arisen in the global forestry community over the apparent weakening of a forest protection agreement that would form part of the overall UN climate treaty being thrashed out in Copenhagen. But what we’re probably seeing is some hard bargaining and tactical positioning on the way to a final deal for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).

The release of a daft negotiating text over the weekend saw the hard target for halving world deforestation rates by 2020 dropped, which had been accepted by negotiators for a year or more. Also, no firm funding commitment for developed countries to finance the fight against forest clearing was contained, a key to facilitating any agreement to protect rainforests.

This has caused an outcry from environmental NGOs and other stakeholders in forest preservation that REDD risks becoming another area of climate talks that could collapse, or end with a weak and compromised agreement that fails to effectively address a major climate change challenge.

But just like other aspects of the negotiations, including the overarching goals on nations’ emissions reductions and global climate funding, what we see on the table now at the half-way point really represents a staking out of claims and positions ahead of the real negotiations. This will begin in coming days when the politicians, the real decision-makers, arrive and have to face up directly and personally to the pressure for a deal to be done.
[Update 16/12/09: REDD deal now close: Reports]

At the end of the first week of the fortnight of climate talks, it might appear that things have gone backwards and the conference is further from its goal of a global climate agreement than when it started. But what you’re likely seeing is a bit of good old-fashioned bad-cop, good-cop tactics – a long-used negotiation tactic where the bad cop weighs in first with tough talk before the good cop comes along with a more conciliatory and amenable offer. Rivals breathe a sigh of relief and are happy to agree. That’s the theory, anyway. 

The draft text released by Tony La Viña, chairman of the UN working group negotiating the REDD agreement, represents a summary of where things are stand at this point of the talks. It is fairly clear that developing nations have lost patience and withdrawn their support for the 2020 deforestation target until there is a credible funding offer from developed nations on the table. As the Rainforest Foundation UK argues, this is understandable given that it is the funding that will make possible the actions by Latin American, Asian and African countries to meet that target.

Like the wider talks, developed countries have been loathe to commit to hard numbers on financing that will need to be in the order of billions of dollars a year, every year. The UN estimates that $22 to $37 billion will need to be found between 2010 and 2015 for stopping deforestation alone.

But hard numbers will appear this week and a target is likely to go back into the text. Either the original 50 per cent 2020 target or possibly a shorter-term target. There has already been some movement in the right direction with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy issuing a joint statement promising to “work with developed countries and rainforest nations over the next few days to deliver an equitable and effective agreement on forest finance and governance”.

Brown and Sarkozy suggested that 20 per cent of all the funding from developed to developing countries on climate action in the next few years be devoted to preserving forests. “We want the Copenhagen agreement to agree a reduction in deforestation of 25 per cent by 2015, leading to a 50 per cent reduction in 2020 and a halt in 2030. The developed world should pay for the majority of this, supporting developing countries’ own efforts,” the two leaders said.

One major question mark on a global REDD mechanism – how the payments system would work – does appear to heading for the too-hard basket in Copenhagen. Some want a funding model where developed nation governments pay into a global fund for distribution to developing countries which can demonstrate measureable, reportable and verifiable reductions in emissions from deforestation. Others want a more market-based approach based on emissions trading; where countries and companies in the developed world invest in projects that earn tradable carbon credits. Either way rich countries would earn some form of emissions reduction credit toward their own targets.

Lost in the concern over targets and financing, are some positive developments in the draft REDD text. The NGO Wetlands International welcomed the widening of the text to include peatland, enormous wetland carbon stores that are being drained for agricultural development like native forests.

Meanwhile, new analysis from the UK Met Office’s climate change research arm released in Copenhagen puts the deforestation challenge in stark terms. Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Hadley Centre said the modeling made it clear that the over-arching target to limit global warming to plus-2 degrees can’t succeed unless deforestation is pared back.

“Deforestation matters if we are to stabilise climate change at low levels. If deforestation is left unchecked we will definitely see the two-degree target exceeded and maybe even the three-degree target,” Betts said.

“Roughly around one billion tonnes of carbon a year comes from deforestation across the planet compared to around 8.5 billion tonnes from fossil fuel emissions.” The figures are broadly in keeping with latest estimates of the contribution of forest loss to climate change – that deforestation contributes 12 to 15 per cent of total global greenhouse emissions.

Associated Press 12/12/09, Science magazine, SolveClimate, Mongabay 11/12/09

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[Update 16/12/09: REDD deal now close: Reports]
Forests & Copenhagen: Green light for REDD?