A Historic Opportunity to Save Tropical Forests

December 3, 2007: Day 1 of COP13/ CMP3/SB27/AWG4COP 13:
A Historic Opportunity to Save Tropical Forests

Welcome Cop13 delegates! The Tropical Forest Group welcomes you to Nusa Dua – a resort founded on the Balinese principle of Tri Hata Karana, the cosmological harmony between Humans, Nature and God. With all that positive karma, we’re confident you’ll leave the “Island of the Gods” in two weeks able to tell your families you did something historic: help save millions of acres of tropical forests and the plants, animals and people they support. [Unless of course, you don’t].Tropical deforestation has been burning at the fiery pace of 30 million acres per year. [Over the course of twelve days of negotiations, the world will forever lose almost a million acres]. In the time that plenary statements are read, contact groups formed and informals informulated behind closed doors, hundreds of thousands of acres of forests, plants, animals, and livelihoods will be destroyed. The positive carbon karma stored in tropical forests will be oxidized into negative carbon dioxide karma. Not the carbonic karmic baggage-you want to take home.The Tropical Forest Group is here to put reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) into the spotlight, with our trio of 20 foot inflatable silk trees. These trees will greet you as you enter the conference and their appearance will change daily to reflect the negotiations that determine their fate. Today, you’ll notice the trees encapsulated by sets of large brackets. These brackets represent the 21 sets of brackets that currently surround bits of text in the FCCC/SBSTA/2007L.10 document [otherwise known as the “Draft Text for a Decision on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries”]. The Tropical Forest Group urges delegates to remove the brackets and pass a powerful decision to save forests. A good COP13 REDD decision will do three things: 1) It will clarify the REDD process with specific dates for future actions; 2) It will encourage “early action”, including fungible carbon credits for the post-2012 period. [A COP13 decision that does not include early action language = five years of continued rampant deforestation] and [Five years = 150 million acres of deforestation = 110 billion tons of CO2 emissions, assuming 200 tC/ha]3) It will provide a clear mandate to have SBSTA or IPCC develop reference emission scenarios, not just decide on methodological issues for developing reference emission scenarios. Please delegates, tear down the brackets so we can stop tearing down our forests!