Bangkok - Saving the world's remaining native forests must be a big part of any new climate deal as about 20 per cent of global carbon emissions are due to deforestation and forest degradation, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) said Tuesday. The WWF's Forest Carbon Initiative seeks to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emission from deforestation and degradation by 2020.
Private investors are willing to buy carbon credits from developing countries to finance preserving their remaining forest cover, the activists said, citing a recent WWF-sponsored survey.
According to the 2009 Forest Carbon Investor Survey, investors managing about 7 trillion dollars in assets support an expanded carbon market mechanism - basically paying countries to make their forests more valuable by absorbing carbon dioxide than by being cleared for agriculture or timber.
However, potential investors are looking for "more certainty from both international agreements and national legislation before private funds can be mobilized," making it a priority to include the issue in the climate agreement to be hammered out in Copenhagen in December, WWF officials said.
Strong policies to ensure reductions in emissions and benefits to forest communities are a key for investors to support REDD, the United Nations programme for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.
REDD was first talked about at environmental meetings in Montreal in 2005 then got more serious attention at the Bali talks in 2007. Over the subsequent years the general idea has emerged for industrialized countries to buy carbon credits to offset the pollution burning fossil fuels produce as a way for them to meet carbon reduction goals.
The carbon credits would be for paying developing countries to keep their native forest. The countries that could benefit the most include Brazil and Indonesia, both which still have large areas of native forest.
The idea has its critics, with the most common complaint being some industrialized countries would buy carbon credits instead of cutting emissions by replacing fossil fuel burning plants with renewable energy production, which most people see as the main goal of climate change initiatives.
But in Bangkok Tuesday, Don Kanak, chairman of the WWF Forest Carbon Initiative said, it is not meant to replace industrialized countries cutting their emissions, but to be in addition to that.
An agreement in Copenhagen, which includes REDD, would be a strong signal to potential investors, and "will ensure forests are more valuable standing than cut down," the WWF said.
"REDD is critical to a climate solution, and finance is critical to making REDD work," Kanak told a press conference Tuesday.
"In the long term, private capital could play a major role, if certain conditions are satisfied. We need governments to step up to create sufficient financing in the near term to support forest countries' efforts to become REDD-ready," he said.
About 4,000 participants and observers began meeting on Monday in Bangkok for two weeks of talks aimed at finalizing the negotiating text for the next climate deal. A main task is to simplify the current 280-page draft agreement to less than 40 pages.
WWF said Tuesday saving forests must be one of the priorities of that agreement.
"We need to make REDD work in order to get a successful climate deal," Kanak said.
Investors have a lot of knowledge about the REDD programme, believing it has strong potential for a future carbon market, the WWF survey said. Of the 25 investment and fund managers interviewed 14 had indepth knowledge of REED, and only two knew nothing about it.
More than one-third of those surveyed in the 2009 Forest Carbon Investor Survey expect a forest carbon market will evolve from a voluntary to a compliance market over the next five to 15 years if certain conditions for a market-based approach can be met.
Still, creating a market for carbon credits has many challenges and it will take a long time to build it up. That will include setting clear guidelines at Copenhagen in December, said David McCauley with the Asia Development Bank, which is working with WWF on their Forest Carbon Initiative.
But saving the forest is "too important not to get engaged," he said, adding "REDD may offer the last best chance to save the forests of Asia."
