Forests deal at risk over emissions

A DEAL on forests, billed as the “silver lining” of any agreement at the UN climate change summit, is being undermined by developed countries seeking more shelters for some of their greenhouse gas emissions.

Rather than being one of the solutions, negotiations in Copenhagen on forest management, called REDD and LULUCF, are threatening to create loopholes that will destroy the integrity of any overall agreement, according to environmentalists.

LULUCF, which sets the rules for land use, land-use change and forestry in the Kyoto Protocol, has become a means for developed countries to “hide” their emissions, undermining the accuracy of their reduction targets, green campaigners said.

“Developed countries are trying every trick in the book to preserve business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions,” according to Sean Cadman of the Wilderness Society.

It has been estimated that deforestation accounts for 18-20 per cent of emissions.

“How can we expect developing countries to accurately account for emissions from land-use change and deforestation if developed countries continue to shamelessly game the system?” he asked, without pointing to any culprit in particular.

Global Witness, which also campaigns to protect forests, complained that the latest negotiating text would not protect the rights of indigenous peoples, nor did it differentiate between natural forests and timber plantations that served the logging industry.

“This is our last chance on REDD,” said Andrea Johnson of Environmental Intelligence Agency. “If we don’t get adequate safeguards in now, including explicit language on forest protection . . . REDD will be a failure on the ground.”

In what is seen as an important precedent for indigenous people, a legal opinion by international law firm Baker McKenzie has found the Surui tribe in Brazil’s Amazon region has “territorial rights” to an area of forested land the size of the US state of Rhode Island.