European Commission: Climate Policy Post-Copenhagen

The European Commission released a report on how to move forward after Copenhagen. It is a fairly uninteresting report, with no major surprises. The things we found interesting are:
1) ...the Bonn meeting should bring the developed country targets and developing country actions submitted under the Accord into the formal UN negotiating process.
2) The EU's objective for Cancun should therefore be a comprehensive and balanced set of decisions to anchor the Copenhagen Accord in the UN negotiating process, and to address the gaps. There should also be a formal decision on the listing of developed country targets and the registration of developing country actions, including the methods to account for these. All the decisions should come under an "umbrella" decision to provide the overall political framework.
3) Very little mention of REDD in the 12 page document, despite REDD+ having its own mechanism in the Accord as well as a meaningful SBSTA decision.
4) The Commission will assess the merits and drawbacks of alternative legal forms, including of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol.
5) Among the most difficult negotiations in Copenhagen were those on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV). Transparency is key to ensure mutual trust and demonstrate the effectiveness and adequacy of targets and actions. The Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol provide basic standards of MRV, through national communications and inventories. The Copenhagen Accord requires the strengthening of this system. This must be one of the priorities in the work to anchor the compromises in the Copenhagen Accord in the UN process.

The full title of the report is:
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
International climate policy post-Copenhagen: Acting now to reinvigorate global action on climate change
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UN-REDD Programme releases it's 2009 Year in Review

The UN-REDD Programme, established in 2009 through a partnership with the FAO, UNDP, UNEP, and the Government of Norway, has released it's first annual review.  In the document, the Programme highlights it's progress in key pilot countries, MRV achievements, and general support to the UNFCCC process on REDD+.  Click on the link above for the full report in English, French, or Spanish.

Saving forests, cultures and carbon dioxide

Nature magazine covers some recent work by Ricketts et all on the overlap between carbon and indigenous lands and other protected areas.

The original work was published in PLOS Biology, and you can find it here:
http://dx.plos.org/ambra-doi-resolver/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000331

UNDP releases report on tools to mainstream climate change adaptation activities

Over the last decade, development practitioners have created various climate risk screening tools for various activity levels and applications.  This concise report by the UNDP takes stock of the varying strengths and weaknesses of the existing adaptation formulas of key development organizations, and defines climate change adaptation concepts. 

The adaptation overview comes at a pressing time, given the billions of dollars earmarked in the new COP 15 mechanism for adaptation financing, and the lack of clarity within the mechanism on acceptable adaptation activities.  Read the full report here.

More bashing of sub-national REDD

Click on the blog title to see the UK Guardian article entitled "Noel Kempff project is 'saving the forest' by forcing destruction elsewhere".

The Nation Slams REDD and sub-national accounting

This has to be one of the most self-righteous article ever written. It is sure to bring more fire works to the issue. Democracy Now followed up on Hari's article in The Nation with this interview... http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/hari_video.

The key thing Democracy Now and Mr Hari miss is that REDD+ has been approved by all nations signing up to the Copenhagen Accord. If the United Nations and the UNFCCC trying to tackle climate change and deforestation is not international democracy (Now), then I don't know what is. No one thinks the Copenhagen Accord is perfect, but it will probably have more traction than Hari's suggestion that we all put ourselves in front of coal trains.

China and India Join Climate Accord

U.S. and Brazil sign deforestation agreement

Coal States Lawmakers Seek to Delay Emission Limits

US federal legislation or regulation fades farther away...

BASIC Courting Indonesia

The Jakarta Post is reporting that the new bloc of countries known as BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) has extended membership to Indonesia. For REDD+ this is very interesting. Of these large developing countries, two of them have very little deforestation (China and India) and two have historically high rates of deforestation (Brazil and Indonesia). This could create an interesting dynamic if BASIC becomes an important bloc.