Took Note of the Views

As of our last pilfered view of the REDD text coming out of SBSTA36, the inclusion of the technical assessment of forest reference levels (RLs) reads only as concept to be revisited in future conferences. It’s a decision to decide to be undecided until further decisions are in place. Patience we will have to have. The draft reads as follows:

“The SBSTA, in recalling decision 12/CP.17, paragraph 15, agreed to initiate work on developing guidance for the technical assessment of the proposed forest reference emission levels and/or forest reference levels at its thirty-seventh session with the aim of reporting to the COP at its eighteenth and nineteenth sessions on progress made, including any recommendations on a draft decision for this matter.”

We are disappointed that there was not more time or consensus to make the assessment of RLs a reality in Bonn. For REDD+ to become a functional mechanism, RLs must submitted by countries and properly assessed by a balanced team of experts from the UNFCCC Secretariat. Said assessments are the key to overcoming major technical hurdles to implementing REDD+. According to our legal reading of the Durban package, the COP had asked the SBSTA to outline this guidance for the assessment process. We fear that as time fills in around the Durban decision on RLs, their importance will be buried. Had there been true progress on this issue, the framework for assessment could have been put in place last week with a clear mandate. To this we will circle back and circle back again.

Incoming and Outgoing

As of April, the directorship of the Tropical Forest Group officially changed hands in an honest shake. The incoming director, Jeff Metcalfe, was an original founder of TFG and ran the organization previously from 2006-2008. Welcome back, Mr. Metcalfe, to the glittering conference halls. The outgoing (the very outgoing) director, John-O Niles, has stepped into a new position as the Director of Forests and Climate at WWF.  Of his replacement at TFG, Mr. Niles says, “There is no one better suited than Jeff to take the reins of this unruly rhino.” Mr. Niles will retain a place on TFG’s board of directors and has promised to devote the hours between 3 am and 5 am PST every other Thursday to relevant matters. Whether or not he is awake. 

Assessment

The thirty-sixth session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) is well underway Bonn, Germany. While still productive, this ever-evolving drafting of the text is starting to feel more like an unraveling than a compiling. As if the entire process were a scrambled mass of threads, Earth sized, that needs to be disentangled. The more you pull on some strings the tighter they knot. The SBSTA was established in 1995 to provide the COP advice on scientific, technological and methodological issues. It is a key nexus for REDD as it is charged with the improvement of guidelines and reporting mechanisms for emission inventories. In the end, any effective climate policy from the COP must rest squarely on a foundation of hard data. Exactly how much carbon dioxide from exactly how many trees. The Tropical Forest Group is still following closely the particulars of the inclusion of forest reference levels in the text. In Durban, developing country parties were requested to submit REDD reference levels. COP 17 also agreed to establish a process for assessing the proposed reference levels and asked for SBSTA 36 to develop guidance on said assessment. We are still waiting to see if the delegates can extricate the language to address this assessment guidance in a way that will allow countries to move forward. All that is needed is a sentence or two drawn out of the snarled negotiations in a cohesive thread. 

Pressure Drop

My daughter has maintained from a very young age that trees make wind. Which is understandable for the childmind since one cannot see wind, only its repercussions in the trees. Waving branches, shaking leaves. Thus the most noticeable effect is conflated with the likeliest cause. But turns out she may be right.

In 2007, two Russian physicists, Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva, put forth the “biotic pump theory” which postulates that forests, not temperature differentials, are the driving force behind wind patterns and, in turn, precipitation over land masses. A recent interview with these physicists can be found on Mongabay.com. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0201-hance_interview_bioticpump.html

The biotic pump theory transcends conventional meteorology while further emphasizing the vital functions of forests in climate change mitigation. In the wind-generating forests of this still controversial model, water vapor from coastal forests and oceans turn to clouds. As the gas changes to liquid, the air pressure is lowered. The low pressure over the forest sucks moist air in from over the ocean generating wind, which drives moisture further inland. 

In terms of climate change, Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva argue that it is the preservation of the water cycle over land – through the preservation of forests - that will have an even greater stabilizing effect than reducing carbon emissions. They say in the interview that, “Such climate stabilization can be performed by natural forests that control the hydrological cycle on land and the adjacent ocean, provided they are allowed to occupy a significant area. Conversely, destruction of forests leads to disruption of the hydrological cycle, which expectedly causes significant fluctuations of the magnitude of the global greenhouse effect, up to complete loss of climate stability and transition of Earth’s climate to a state incompatible with life.”

Given that the distinct interactions between forests and weather are the results of epic years of evolution, this proposed biotic pump functions most optimally in natural forest communities, and not monoculture plantation. In an intact ecosystem, “The root system of forest trees facilitates both storage and extraction of moisture from soil; biogenic aerosols produced by trees control the intensity of water vapor condensation over the forest; the large height of trees determines the vertical temperature gradient under the canopy, keeping soil evaporation under biotic control . . . Thus, natural forests not only create an ocean-to-land moist air flow, but also stabilize this flow at an optimum level and prevent its extreme fluctuations like hurricanes, tornadoes, severe droughts or floods.”

The critical role forests play in terms of carbon emission and sequestration is already situated at the heart of the climate debate. But if forests are also directly responsible for climate stability, the implications for global policy are vast. Take a look at the interview, reader, and tell us what you think.

UN-REDD Programme Launches 2011 Report

Just released, this report provides a comprehensive look at the progress made in the last year by the 14 national programs and other partner countries connected to the UN-REDD Programme. UN-REDD has seven integrated work areas designed to address the following outcomes:

1. REDD+ countries have capacities to develop and implement MRV and monitoring systems.
2. Credible, inclusive national governance systems are developed for REDD+ implementation.
3. National systems for transparent, equitable, credible and accountable management of REDD+ funding are strengthened.
4. Indigenous Peoples local communities, CSOs, and other stakeholders participate effectively in national and international REDD+ decision making, strategy development and implementation.
5. Multiple benefits of forests are promoted and realized in REDD+ strategies and actions.
6. REDD+ strategies and related investments effectively catalyze shifts to a green economy.
7. Knowledge is developed, managed, analyzed and shared to support REDD+ efforts at all levels.

The report also highlights country-specific outcomes and lesson learned from work in partnerships in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean over the past year. The full report can be linked to in the title.

New online tool tracks deforestation (countries, states/provinces, municipalities)

Enormous greenhouse gas emissions are generated by deforestation, mostly in tropical countries. It follows that any viable effort to mitigate climate change will have to address tropical forest clearing, and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programs are focusing on this problem. However, implementation of many REDD+ programs has been hampered by the lack of timely information on local forest clearing. CGD’s Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA) system has been designed to help fill this information gap.

After three years of development work, we're pleased to announce the first global implementation of FORMA, which tracks monthly tropical forest clearing since December 2005 in 27 countries, their 280 states and provinces, and over 2,900 subprovinces and municipalities. We’ll soon release a companion GIS database that tracks monthly clearing in each square kilometer of tropical forest land in the countries covered by FORMA.
We have posted our first global report, which introduces FORMA and provides summary data and graphics, athttp://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1425835/

Mongabay's post-Durban REDD+ wrap up