Posted
on 16 June 2011
As the latest United Nations climate change
talks reach their final stages, CARE International,
Greenpeace and WWF are calling on the world’s
governments to show leadership and unite
on efforts to halt forest loss by 2020.
The details of a global
mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation in developing countries
(REDD+) were under negotiation at the climate
talks this week.
Yet, REDD+ alone will
not save the world’s tropical forests and
stop runaway climate change unless further
urgent action is taken to reduce emissions
in all countries, said CARE, Greenpeace
and WWF. The organizations are calling on
governments to commit to ambitious goals
that set the scale and urgency for halting
forest destruction. In addition, demand
for biofuels, animal feed and beef should
not lead to more forests being converted
to agricultural land, said the groups.
“We are spending precious
time designing a complex system of rules
for REDD+. These are necessary to protect
the rights and livelihoods of the millions
of poor men and women who depend on forests,”
commented Raja Jarrah, CARE’s Senior Advisor
on REDD+. “But this is only part of the
story. With no ambitious commitment to cut
global emissions, it is like treating a
patient’s lung disease without asking him
to stop smoking.”
While considerable progress has been made
on working out the details of REDD+ in these
UN climate talks, negotiators must not shy
away from making the big commitments that
will ensure REDD+ is successful in halting
forest loss and tackling climate change,
the groups said. This will also put the
world on the path to a future built on low
carbon economies.
“In Bonn, developed countries including
the United States have been calling on developing
countries to monitor, report, and verify
(MRV) their emissions. But what we actually
need is for all countries to be transparent
about how their policies, including for
public and private finance, are supporting
the drivers of deforestation,” said Roman
Czebiniak, Senior Policy Advisor for Greenpeace.
Industrialized countries
also have a critical role to play in providing
adequate, predictable and sustainable financing
for REDD+, said the organizations. The needed
finance to support REDD+ actions should
be addressed at the UN climate change talks
in Durban South Africa at the end of this
year.
“The world must
step-up with the money needed to support
forest countries’ efforts to end forest
loss,” said Gerald Steindlegger, WWF’s Policy
Director on Forests and Climate. “Investing
in maintaining our forests is essential
to people and nature.”
