By Dorothy Tekwie

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PNG Post-Courier, May 5, 2009) – Yesterday the Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, officially opened the first of four regional conferences organised by the Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability (OCCES).

This meeting comes soon after a March meeting by the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark. During this meeting the delegates concluded that the worst-case scenario trajectories for the global climate are being realised.

Protecting tropical forests, like those found in Papua New Guinea, is vital if dangerous climate change is to be slowed or stopped.

Although tropical forests cover only 7 per cent of the earth’s land surface, they store enormous amounts of carbon and contain nearly half of all life on earth. Tropical deforestation and land-cover change is responsible for about one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. A major driver of deforestation is logging, which degrades forest areas. Degraded tropical forests are very susceptible to the effects of climate change.

Recent science tells us that tropical forests are at risk from higher temperatures, which will result in species loss and fires. Intact forests are the most resilient to climate change and species loss but if destructive logging practices, like those found in PNG, continue to degrade forests, then PNG’s forests will become more at risk.

Addressing solutions to deforestation and forest degradation must be considered with the same urgency as reducing fossil fuel consumption.

However, since almost all of the world’s tropical forests are found in developing countries the millions of people who live in and off the forests need to have their future secured so that they can become and remain guardians of the forests.

Therefore Greenpeace is proposing a funding mechanism, which would see the transfer of money from rich countries to poor ones in order to stop forest destruction. Called Forests for Climate, it is a proposal for an international funding mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) at the national level.

Basically it would work like this: Industrialised countries would have to meet a percentage of their total emission obligations by purchasing Tropical Deforestation Emission Reduction Units.

The money from this would then be used to set up a system to regulate and monitor the forests that are being protected to reduce GHG emissions and give a fair share of benefits to appropriate forest resource stakeholders. This carbon financing is best managed via country level Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) Funds rather gambling with carbon markets. Brazil has such a fund and hundreds of millions of US$ are already committed to it.

A PNG country level REDD Fund would channel the finance to provincial administered ’incentive’ funds delivering benefits at a local community level. In return, developing countries with tropical forests who choose to participate in such a mechanism must provide permanent reductions in deforestation with a goal of halting all emissions from tropical deforestation within a decade. Forest communities and landowners involved in the scheme would receive benefits in exchange for the protection of their forests, instead of feeling pressured to seek an income by signing away their land rights to destructive industries like logging or oil palm. The national government would play a role of regulator and ensure a national approach to accounting for GHG emissions whether it’s from deforestation, burning fossil fuels, agriculture etc.

Forests for Climate would seek to provide forest conservation financing that gives win-win-win benefits for climate, biodiversity, and local communities and indigenous peoples.

There are many other proposals for carbon trading and REDD. These have the following key differences compared to the Greenpeace proposal: no clear requirement for indigenous peoples’ and local community rights, dangerous carbon trading models that will do nothing to reduce GHG emissions, credits which can be given to forest destruction activities such as logging, and "project" approaches rather than "national" approaches to accounting for emissions — meaning a carbon project in one forest area could simply just push deforestation to forests somewhere else in the country.

Currently PNG simply does not have the methodologies and data to support carbon trading.

If the PNG Government is so concerned about the impacts of climate change they must take immediate action to save the last remaining forests of Papua New Guinea by putting in place a moratorium on any new logging concessions. All existing concessions must be reviewed and any that are found to be in breach of forestry laws should be revoked.

The forests of PNG are the nation’s wealth. It is a crime against PNG’s future generations to log them cheaply for wood or clear them for other purposes.

As co-chair of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, PNG has placed itself in a leadership role within the international debate on carbon financing for forests. However, PNG’s reputation on forest management is woeful. No logging concession is able to meet the International Tropical Timber Organisation’s criteria for sustainable logging and none, except for two community eco-forestry group schemes, have Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.

If Papua New Guinea wants to be taken seriously internationally when asking for carbon financing support it needs putting in place measures to protect its forests immediately. Greenpeace believes it is possible to keep the worst impacts of climate change — such as extreme weather events, water crises and increased hunger — from putting millions of people at risk. This will take a revolution in the way we use and produce energy, and a strong commitment to stop deforestation worldwide.

Papua New Guinea Post-Courier: www.postcourier.com.pg/