A widely used representation of greenhouse gas emissions abatement costs doesn't reflect the true costs of forest conservation, making the proposed reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) mechanism seem cheaper than it actually is, argues a new report from the Rainforest Foundation UK.

Developed by McKinsey & Company, a consultancy, the carbon mitigation cost-curve shows the size of various opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions for different activities in order of cost. Potential emissions savings (abatement) are on the x-axis and the cost (per metric ton of carbon dioxide) is listed on the y-axis. The model has been applied by several countries developing REDD strategies, including Indonesia, Guyana, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Papua New Guinea.

But in a new briefing, McREDD: How McKinsey 'cost-curves' are distorting REDD [PDF], the London-based Rainforest Foundation UK says the cost-curve is underestimating the true cost of REDD, potentially "distorting" national REDD plans. The Rainforest Foundation UK argues that McKinsey cost-curve fails to account for transaction and implementation costs; neglects the challenges of governance; and "undervalues activities not integrated into formal markets, such as subsistence farming".

"The approach is flawed as a policy-making tool as it does not consider alternative policy options, and favors policy that would allow industrial uses of the forest to continue business-as-usual, whilst penalizing subsistence activities," states the briefing, which is authored by Nathaniel Dyer and Simon Counsell.

The authors note that forest communities are disadvantaged under the approach because it suggests their activities should be compensated at a much lower level than industrial interests—including loggers, plantation owners, ranchers, and large farmers—which generate higher output per unit of land. Dyer and Counsell argue that compensation postulated for smallholders under McKinsey cost-curve may be insufficient to actually reduce deforestation because it doesn't account for the full opportunity cost of foregoing subsidence activities. Instead, by arguing for substantially higher levels of compensation for industrial forest developers, the curve seems to favor loggers and plantation developers continuing on a business-as-usual path.

McKinsey & Company. (2009.) “Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy: Version 2 of Global Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curve.”, p. 7.

Indonesia’s National Climate Change Council (DNPI). (2010.) “Indonesia’s greenhouse gas abatement cost curve”. August 2010, p. 21.

"McKinsey's flawed analysis could be dangerous in the fight against climate change, as it makes it appear much cheaper and easier to tackle tropical deforestation than it would be in reality and it might lead us to postpone the real actions that need to be taken at home to prevent climate change. Priorities for reducing carbon emissions need to be based on the real costs of the different options, rather than on junk economic theory", said Counsell, Executive Director of Rainforest Foundation UK, in a statement.

Counsell said the McKinsey cost-curve—in its current form—should be scrapped as a tool for designing national REDD plans. The Rainforest Foundation UK would instead like to see a more participatory process for evaluating the costs and opportunities of REDD.

For its part, McKinsey says it is "continuously researching the topic of abatement or mitigation" and accordingly, has updated its abatement curve twice since it launched in January 2007.

Copyright mongabay 2010

Source: Mongabay

As a sign of its commitment to the environment, Singapore Airlines recently pledged its support for the Harapan Rainforest Initiative, a ground-breaking forest restoration project in Indonesia.

Deep within the Harapan rainforest in Sumatra, Indonesia, the wonders of nature unfold in a picture of breathtaking beauty and serenity. In various corners of the 100,000-hectare site, a stunning Bluebanded Kingfisher flits about restlessly near a slow-moving stream; Agile Gibbons perch on branches high up in hardwood trees, sleeping with their arms wrapped around their knees and heads tucked into their laps, while reclusive Malayan Sun Bears amble out to forage for berries and insects. They, along with endangered species like the Sumatran tiger and Malayan tapir, have made the Harapan rainforest their home. But increasingly, reality is closing in: the shrinking of the rainforest in which they live and thrive has put their very survival at risk.

According to environmental think tank World Resources Institute, more than 80 per cent of the Earth’s natural forests have been destroyed. Of these, the Harapan Rainforest (home to over 290 species of birds and 55 mammals) is one of the last remaining swathes of lowland forest in Indonesia.

Realising the need to conserve this tract of forest, Singapore Airlines has pledged US$3 million to the Harapan Rainforest Initiative (HRI), its first major involvement in a large-scale green project.

“Forests are among the world’s chief carbon stores, and the arrestment of deforestation is a key step towards combating climate change,” stressed Bey Soo Khiang, Singapore Airlines’ Senior Executive Vice-President Marketing and Corporate Services.

The funds from Singapore Airlines will go towards financing core operations, such as programmes to protect the rainforest’s plant and animal species, and the employment of forest patrols – many of whom are indigenous people who depend on the forest for their livelihood – to prevent illegal logging and forest fires.

“Harapan is a ground-breaking forest restoration project. It will be of even greater value if it serves as a pilot that others can follow,” said Sir Graham Wynne, Chairman of Yayasan KEHI. The non-profit foundation manages the day-to-day operations of the project.

A collaboration between several international non-governmental organisations including BirdLife International and Burung Indonesia, HRI is one of the first forest protection and restoration concessions of its kind in the world.

Taking the first step to preserve our rainforests with initiatives like this will help ensure the sustainability of our environment for future generations.

ILLUSTRATION: ELENA TSAREGRADSKAYA

COPYRIGHT 2010 © SINGAPORE AIRLINES LTD (REGN. NO. 197200078R) AND SPH MAGAZINES PTE LTD (REGN. NO 196900476M). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Source: SILVERKRIS

Indonesia has high hopes prior to the upcoming Cancun climate talks of setting up a new fund body to start disbursing US$30 billion pledged by developed nations.

Rich countries have vowed to provide the money within three years until 2012 to help developing nations mitigate and adapt to climate change.

But a year after the pledge was made in Copenhagen in 2009, the mechanism remains unclear given the absence of an institution to deal with the money.

“The issue of the new fund should be settled at Cancun [Mexico] since the deadline to disburse the money is only two years away,” climate change finance negotiator Ismid Hadad said.

He said the new fund should be placed under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the trustee elected through an open competitive bidding process.

“The trustee could be a new private financing institution or multilateral banks and Global Environmental Facility [GEF],” Ismid said.

Indonesia also expressed hope that the new fund could be used to finance adaptation, mitigation and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD plus).

Developed nations want the World Bank or GEF to act as trustee for the new fund. Developing countries, however, have long complained over the complicated requirements by the GEF, leading to deadlock.

The UNFCCC said some $28 billion of the pledge was now available for disbursement. Developed countries have also committed to mobilize $100 billion per year by 2020. Climate change financing is expected to be one of hottest issues in the climate change debate in Cancun starting next week, in addition to the long-delayed emission cut targets.

Negotiators from 190 countries will gather in Cancun for a two-week meeting starting Nov. 29 to discuss long-standing issues of  mitigation, finance, adaptation, technology transfer and emission cut targets.

Local NGOs also urged more explicit support from developed countries to support less-developed countries to reduce global emissions.

Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam) activist Siti Maemunah said Tuesday that the lavish lifestyle in European countries contributed significantly to increasing global energy consumption.

“Coal is the cheapest energy source for some countries,” she told a press conference, during which she also highlighted Jatam’s recent tour to several European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to observe the link of high carbon emissions from several coal mines in Kalimantan.

The three-week tour was aimed at building strategic alliances in raising awareness on the dangers of coal extraction.

For more than four decades, Indonesia has supplied raw material to countries with a huge dependence on fossil fuels, by granting them full access to mines, oil and gas exploration and oil palm plantation
development.

Kahar al Bahri of Jatam said more than 200 million tons of coal was extracted from Kalimantan each year, of which only 2 percent was used for domestic consumption. (ebf) - By Adianto P. Simamora

Source: The Jakarta Post

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As more nations adopt better laws and policies to save and restore forests at home, they may, in fact, be outsourcing deforestation to other parts of the world, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Looking at six developing nations where forests are recovering—instead of receding—the study found only one of them did not outsource deforestation to meet local demand for wood-products and food, a process known as 'leakage'.

"Our study found that strengthened forest-conservation policies and economic expansion often increased the demand for imported timber and agricultural products, which contributed to deforestation abroad." explained study co-author Eric Lambin of Stanford University in California and the University of Louvain in Belgium, in a press release.

The study looked at China, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, India, and Vietnam, each of which went from a country with net deforestation to net reforestation over the past 50 years. However, saving trees locally in some cases meant cutting trees abroad: in all the countries but India, net reforestation meant a decline in timber harvests and new agriculture, thereby creating increased demand for exports from nations with illegal logging (such as Brazil) or corruption (such as Indonesia).

On average for every 100 acres reforested locally in the five nations (not including India) 22 acres were cut abroad. However, that figure has jumped in the last five years to 52 acres cut abroad for every 100 reforested. This means that for every two acres saved locally, one acre was lost abroad to feed consumption.

"If local forest protection merely shifts forest-conversion pressure to natural forests elsewhere in the world, we will not achieve a net gain for nature at a global scale," Lambin said. In fact, despite decades of efforts by conservationists and policymakers, forest cover continues to decline worldwide.

But, Lambin urged the public not to misunderstand the findings.

"This study does not imply that the efforts of these countries to protect their forests was useless, but that international trade in wood and agricultural products can decrease the global environmental benefits of national forest-protection policies," he said.

Authors said officials at the up-coming Climate Summit in Cancun, Mexico should take the paper's findings into account, especially when negotiating a program to pay nations to keep forests standing called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD).

"The REDD mechanism that is under negotiation should include guardrails to assure that countries that commit to decrease their rate of deforestation do not export their deforestation," said co-author Patrick Meyfroidt, also with the University of Louvain.

Last year, a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) warned that REDD would not work unless policymakers addressed consumption issues worldwide and put the responsibility as much on the consuming country as on the producer.

(By Jeremy Hance)

CITATION: Patrick Meyfroidt, Thomas K. Rudel, and Eric F. Lambin. Forest transitions, trade, and the global displacement of land use. PNAS 2010 : 1014773107v1-201014773.

Source: Mongabay

Some rights for the image is reserved under Creative Commons license