But despite a high demand for REDD, there are few such credits in the market, due to difficulties generating them and accounting for their benefits. Carbon Conservation, an Australian firm, knows these problems well because the company has spent five years riding an on-and-off project development process in Aceh province, Indonesia.
It's not politically easy being REDD
The project was designed to protect 750,000 hectares (1.85 million acres) of forests -- home to tens of thousands of families and various species including endangered Sumatran tigers -- by originating up to 3.4 million tons of carbon credits every year for 30 years.
Its future sounded so promising that the project not only won support from the local government, it also persuaded U.S. brokerage firm Merrill Lynch to sign a carbon credit purchasing deal worth millions of dollars at that time. After passing a third-party validation for social and environmental benefits, it moved forward to creating carbon credits in 2008.
And that's where things started to get tricky. The project development first slowed down due to technical hurdles -- a shared headache among many pioneers, according to Ralph Strebel, vice president of Carbon Conservation. Then it stalled amid a busy election season in 2011. And when the elections finally ended earlier this year, the project was held up for a review because its political backer no longer governs the province.
Strebel said he has no knowledge of whether the new government is interested in REDD or when the review will be completed.
On an even larger scale, experts cite unstable policy as endangering the success of REDD projects. One ironic case came when Papua New Guinea -- which introduced the idea of REDD to the world -- froze pilot project development on its own land after a leadership change in 2009. (The nation recently elected a new leader and may renew its interest in REDD.)
Besides political risks, the collapse of the global economy has also affected REDD project development. Chances for raising funds to develop more saved forests appear remote in tougher times. And if and when that financing does come, that may be the beginning of another bumpy, leaky journey.
It is not a secret that forests stock carbon dioxide, but the amount of the carbon stored remains a mystery. To find out the answer, REDD project developers have to hike into forests with devices on their shoulders and measure emissions from each tree among tens of thousands. This process takes months and requires a repeat every year, as the emissions vary with the health of trees.
Fighting the 'carbon cowboys'
This, together with other time-consuming preparations, poses a threat to the mission of saving forests. That's because whenever REDD projects fail to deliver financial benefits as promised, villagers may go back to their traditional revenue sources: logging or replacing forests with agricultural land.
Some steps have already been taken in recent years to use technologies to speed up the process, like using satellite to enhance carbon monitoring. Other innovations are being rolled out to strengthen forest developers, with the world's first political risk insurance given to a REDD project in Cambodia last year.
At the same time, REDD supporters have been working hard to keep villagers on their side. The U.N.-REDD Programme, for one, taught villagers the right questions to ask if someone drops in and touts a REDD project. The program hopes to lessen the damage done by "carbon cowboys" -- a group of carbon credit dealers who promise expanding and often fictitious benefits to villagers in order to get them to sign a deal.
Despite all this work, there are still many problems that remain to be solved. Among them is the fact that a reduction in logging in some countries leads to pressure on other countries to cut down their forests to meet increasing demand.
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7 Comments
Add CommentThe article asks: “If rich nations need to meet emission reduction targets, why don't they do so by paying poorer nations to protect their forests?”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnswer- one issue is reducing actual emissions while the other is a bologna form of accounting that does not actually reduce emissions, but gives countries a way of pretending that they are reducing emissions.
How many American readers believe it is a worthwhile idea to have our taxes raised even more than they will be anyway in order to send money to Asian countries so that they do not poorly manage their own forests?
Sisko,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes your answer apply to military spending -- which much of it can be considered a subsidy to the defense of other nations? Should the US continue to be the world's police force allowing other nations to piggyback? Compare our expenditures on the "War on Terror" to rest of world. Also, the size of expenditures and expenditures per GDP (and per capita) should be compared.
Many might say that's a false equivalency because our military power is linked to our global leadership. Hmmm...
Priorties are interesting. If the people of a certain ideological slant had different priorites, the "War on Climate Change" would be in our lexicon. Yes, interesting priorities... since those same people consider us to be a Christian nation.
Similar arguments could be made regarding health care spending.
Easy answer, no. Not cutting down forests will save forests. This ridiculous belief in government regulation and trading of so called pollution rights will do absolutely nothing except at best allow politicians to make the claim they are doing something for votes or money but otherwise all that will happen is some nations will hand over money and the countries with forests will still cut down the trees anyway to sell to whoever will buy. Waste, not following agreements and in general doing whatever they can to line their own pockets is sort of par for the course for banana republics, third world dictators and in general countries run by thugs or chiefs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCramer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is interesting that you link the two issues in any way since they are unrelated. If you ask does the US waste money on defense spending, I would answer yes, but that has nothing to do with the article. If people around the world had different priorities many things would be different and maybe there would not be 7 billion humans exploiting the planets resources. All of which has ZERO to do with US taxpayers having to pay more to send funds to another independent nation.
Cramer: Military spending is never accounted for, its money for the taking by the super corrupt. The USA chose to attack the ignorant nation of Afghanistan, when they were attacked by the theocratic Saudi Arabian nation in their jihad to spread Islam across the world. This demonstration of religious might turned people to religion world-wide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn honest response would have been a nuclear attack on the religious centres of Saudi Arabia. No further world takeover from Islam would have followed.
Sadly in the free states, religious groups, though they have lost their following, strategically place their representatives as candidates for political positions and encourage their congregations to support them. They wield disproportionate power without the massive followings they once had.
In Australia "The Lyons Forum", a group of parliamentarians represent the Christian churches. Mr Tony Abbot, a failed priest, was health minister and for three years refused to sign into legislation the morning after pill. Parliament and The Therapeutic Goods Administration had passed all the necessary legislation. Dozens of young mainly Christian girls committed suicide as a result. Only one evil representative of the most evil organisation on the planet "Religion" held our nation to his perverted depraved thought process.
Another point. The church claims abusive priests are acting on their own accord. Not true, the church takes children in their early early teens into seminaries, and converts them into sexually abusive mysogenic adult priests.
As previously stated the environment will always play second fiddle to economics. Rich nations always forget that a lot of their wealth has been build on the explotation of poorer nations....its the human way. Always has been and sadly I see this behaviour continuing. Only when the economies of the rich are threatened and hurting will they react to try and save themselves....will it be too late?? Are we too stupid/arrogant/greedy?? Time will tell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about the poorer nations simply manage their own affairs. Maybe they should consider the term forest management and not blame other nations if THEY cut down to many trees
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