Tropical Forests Outcomes from the Copenhagen Climate Negotiations
Update by Doug Boucher, Director, Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative, UCS
In the context of a disappointing outcome overall, the Copenhagen climate negotiations did move things forward for international cooperation to protect tropical forests. The efforts for "REDD+" —reducing emissions from deforestation, conserving forest carbon and increasing uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—had three kinds of positive outcomes:
- In the "Copenhagen Accord," the crucial role of REDD+ was recognized and nations agreed on the "immediate need" to establish a mechanism to finance it and other cooperative actions. Later in the Accord, some of the details of the mechanism were agreed on as well as initial steps to provide the necessary funding.
- In the negotiations specifically on REDD+, the conference adopted guidance on methodologies containing some steps forward, such as taking into account the "drivers of deforestation"—factors like the demand for beef, livestock feed, and biofuels that cause forests to be cut down to make cattle pastures, soybean fields, and oil palm plantations. The broader REDD+ text was not finished, but negotiators will resume their work using a text (from December 15 or later) that emphasizes the need for safeguards for the rights of indigenous peoples and for biodiversity, discourages the conversion of natural forests to plantations, and has a place to define the goal of REDD+ in terms of how fast emissions from deforestation should be reduced, and how much money it will take to accomplish that goal.
- Countries made specific financial commitments to provide money for REDD+. For example, the U.S. announced $1 billion in funding over the next three years, as party of a six-nation group that will provide a total of $3.5 billion. There were much larger commitments for longer-term funding—e.g. $100 billion worldwide—for climate activities including REDD+. These are not yet the amounts that are necessary to end deforestation, but they're the first large commitments since Norway pledged $2.5 billion over five years at the Bali conference two years ago. Interestingly enough, Brazil's President Lula da Silva also pledged to help fund the climate activities of other developing countries, in addition to cooperative efforts it already has underway to share its space technology used to monitor deforestation from space.
None of these efforts are legally binding, specific enough, or large enough, and countries could still backslide on them during 2010. Governments will need to be held accountable to fulfill and increase them and fill in the details of their commitments. But they do mean that tropical forests come out of the Copenhagen conference closer to being saved than when they went into it.
