Can carbon trading save our forests?

By Susan Austin
June 26, 2009 – Hobart, Tasmania -- Along with over 400 other people, I turned up to the Wrest Point Casino here to attend the premiere of The Burning Season on June 1. I had the film’s headline -- “As inspiring as The Inconvenient Truth was frightening” in the back of my mind, hoping for a good news story. Instead I sat through a well-orchestrated promo for a carbon trading company, set up by a young Australian-based millionaire whose message was that it is possible to make money and save the environment at the same time.By setting up a carbon trading company called Carbon Conservation, and brokering high-level deals between big banks and provincial Indonesian governors, the film’s “star”, young entrepreneur Dorjee Sun, was able to secure the protection of large areas of forests that may otherwise have been logged or burnt.
The plight
of orangutans that are dying through loss of habitat was a heart-string pulling
sideline. The audience was invited to join in the panel discussion at the end
with a request for positive comments and an appeal to go beyond the standard,
divisive “two-sided forestry debate”. We were implored to see that greenies and
woodchippers could find a win-win solution in
In April 2007 in Bali, Dorjee Sun obtained the support of
three provincial governors, Yusuf Irwandi (Aceh), Barnabas Suebu (Papua) and
Abraham Atururi (Papua Barat), who subsequently signed an agreement giving Sun the
rights to trade the carbon credits represented by their forests. The main
project showcased in The Burning Season is
the protection of 1.9 million acres of the Ulu Masen forest in Indonesia’s Aceh
province, with a scheme whereby companies and individuals can buy credits from
the protected forest to offset their own emissions. The project forecasts that
the preservation of the Ulu Masen forest will avoid 100 million tons of carbon
dioxide over 30 years.
In The
Burning Season we watch Sun try and sell his scheme to managers of
Starbucks, eBay and other companies, finally clinching a deal with the huge
investment bank, Merrill Lynch (now taken over by the Bank of America). We see
him take part in behind-the-scenes negotiations at the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change in December 2007 in Bali, where the Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD)
scheme was given provisional support, thus giving his project solid potential.
Deforestation
and land use change are responsible for between 18-20% of global greenhouse gas
emissions and there is no doubt that
Using fire
to clear land is a cheap but destructive method and The Burning Season documents the period from August to October 2006, when smoke from
burning cleared forests and underlying peat beds in
Interestingly, The Burning Season’s website (http://www.theburningseasonmovie.com/
) explains that decentralisation of power – i.e. the implementation of regional
self-government, which takes some of the autonomy back from Jakarta – has been
of benefit to the forests in provinces like Aceh, Papua and West Papua, stating
that “these traditionally separatist areas are taking control of their forest
resources and attempting to find innovative ways to preserve and manage them
sustainably. However, lack of capital to manage long-term programs is an issue;
and overseas investment is being sought.”
The film includes scenes of local farmers talking to the Indonesian
environment organisation WALHI, and points out that WALHI produces public
information leaflets about the destructive impact of illegal forest burning as
part of an education campaign designed to discourage farmers from unsustainable
practices.
Ellen
Roberts, member of the Friends of the Earth (FOE) climate justice collective in
Roberts
pointed out that “unless you deal with demands that have been driving the
deforestation, (in Indonesia’s case massive demand for timber and pulp from the
USA, Japan and China) then locking up one forest may just mean that another
forest gets logged, whether this is in another part of the same county, or a
different country.”
The WALHI
report states: “Another concern with linking REDD to markets relates to the
issue of national sovereignty over natural resources. Both at the national and
community levels we may see a loss of autonomy over natural resources as third
parties gain increasing influence over natural resource decisions. Also, as
REDD increases the value of forests, governments may be discouraged from
conceding customary land rights to
Indigenous people’s rights
How much
say indigenous people have over these proposals is also an issue of contention.
In a presentation to the Asia Pacific Climate Change Conference in March 2009
in Bangkok, Thailand, the Indigenous Peoples Network of Malaysia Working Group
on Climate Change pointed out that under the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous People, indigenous peoples have the right to
self-determination, the right to their land and the right to determine
development, many of which are being ignored by the REDD schemes. They call for
indigenous peoples to be able to determine for themselves whether to participate
or benefit from REDD and to have a mechanism for ``opting out’’ their forest
from national accounting if the indigenous community so requests.
According
to Michelle Chen in an April 27, 2009, article on Race Wire, the Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change,
held in Alaska in April 2009, “highlighted indigenous opposition to
conventional carbon trading schemes” and expressed alarm that the World Bank
will play a key role in financing and implementing REDD. In a December 2008
interview, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network criticised
REDD as a kind of "corruption of the sacred", saying "To
be involved with a system that defines something that we hold sacred, and that
is the sacred element of air, to be part of a neo-colonial system that
privatises the atmosphere, to put a money value to it, creates resistance from
our heart.”
Who profits?
Mongabay.com
in its April 21 news story about a newly discovered species of chameleon from
Tanzania being named after Dorjee Sun(!), stated that Sun’s Aceh deal could
eventually generate more than $400 million in carbon finance.
According to WALHI, which
investigated the project’s sales and marketing agreement signed in July 2008,
30% of the credits generated will be set aside as a "risk management buffer"
(presumably to account for concerns over permanence) and the remaining 70%
sold. The proceeds from the sale of these credits will be managed by a
"collection agent" to be jointly selected by Carbon Conservation and
the Aceh government. After the collection agent has taken its fee (the amount
of which is not clear), the remainder is distributed 15% to Carbon Conservation
as a marketing fee and 85% to the project account. The project account will be
used to distribute funds to the local communities. Both the collection agent
and Carbon Conservation potentially stand to make large amounts of money out of
the scheme.
Approximately 130,000 people live in
and immediately adjacent to the Ulu Masen project area, and around 61 villages
will be affected by the project. The project claims it will contribute to
sustainable economic and social development and biodiversity conservation
through the use of land use planning and reclassification, increased monitoring
and law enforcement, reforestation, restoration and sustainable community
logging. Interestingly, Sun said that about 1000 former Free Aceh rebels will
be employed to guard the forests. But the distribution of project account funds
will be managed by a steering committee on which WALHI states that local people
are “grossly under represented”.
According to the film’s website, “The carbon trading
market is now worth about $30 billion, but could grow to $1 trillion within a
decade. In its flourishing, wild-west exhilaration, the carbon trading boom
resembles the gold rush and the dotcom explosion of the early ‘90s.” It goes on
to say “Ultimately, REDD’s conservation of forests is a happy by-product of the
real motivation: profit. Carbon traders investing in ecosystem services such as
carbon sequestration are hoping to reap the rewards of the rising value of the
forest, offsetting pollution against purification. For this reason, some
traditional conservationists regard carbon trading with skepticism -- after
all, wouldn’t it be better just to stop polluting, rather than trying to
compensate for it after the damage is done?” The filmmakers push these issues
aside, arguing that “while this question is being debated, time is running out
for standing forests. Irrespective of its palatability, the profit motive is an
effective way of saving the forest today.”
Does it reduce overall greenhouse
gas emissions?
By making a
one-sided film on such a controversial issue, the filmmakers have attempted to
hide the debate, and instead try to convince us that a simplistic solution is
possible – pay the locals to protect rather than log their forests.
The Burning Season includes just one short acknowledgement of the
widespread concern among environmentalists about carbon trading and carbon
offsetting, in the form of a statement from an environmentalist based in
Indonesia. He pointed out the major flaw in such schemes – the way they allow
big polluting companies in the developed world to continue polluting by simply
paying to reduce emissions elsewhere.
WALHI says in its report: “There
lies an inherent danger in market-based REDD. By allowing Northern countries to
use market-based REDD they will be able to evade responsibility for reducing
emissions in their own countries. This must be recognised as a serious and
fundamental flaw with allowing REDD credits to be included in carbon markets. “
If
companies can simply offset their pollution by buying carbon credits through
this scheme, the overall level of greenhouse gas emissions is not going to
fall. We are being asked to satisfy ourselves with saving forests in the short term
even while knowing that it is not linked to reducing overall emissions. There
may be some merits in saving our virtually irreplaceable old-growth forests that
store way more carbon than plantation forests, but scientists are telling us
that we are in a climate emergency, and we need to reduce emissions drastically
now. So we need to accept nothing
less than saving our forests and
reducing the emissions of the polluting companies.
The film’s website even tries to scare us into thinking
this carbon-trading model is our only option if we want to preserve our quality
of life, saying: “The alternative to 'cap and trade' is that we just pollute
less by sacrificing the things we have that make pollution. Number one on that
list is fossil fuel and anything that runs on it: your car. Your TV. Your
air-conditioner and central heating. Your kettle. Your computer and iPod.”
Actually there are many other strategies for reducing our
greenhouse gas emissions, especially in developed countries. What about the straight-forward
approach of harnessing our taxes and using government regulation and
nationalisation to make a fast transition to renewable energy, public
transport, organic agriculture, energy efficient production and building standards.
With the recent deep crisis of the capitalist market system, it is hard to
believe that some people support creating a new market (trading carbon credits)
in an effort to deal with such a fundamental issue as stopping climate change. Can
we leave such a thing up to a market system? In a June 8, 2009, article on the
website of Mother Jones magazine (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/could-cap-and-trade-cause-another-market-meltdown),
Rachel Morris warns that the proposed US carbon trading scheme “will generate,
almost as an afterthought, a new market for carbon derivatives. That market
will be vast, complicated, and dauntingly difficult to monitor. And if
Washington doesn't get the rules right, it will be vulnerable to speculation
and manipulation by the very same players who brought us the financial
meltdown.”
The WALHI report warns that “Carbon
markets have already proven to be not only complex, but also subject to
significant volatility. If the price of carbon were to collapse, payments to
local forest dependent communities could quite conceivably plunge below
subsistence levels.”
Roberts
pointed out that “
Are all REDD schemes problematic?
Gemma
Tillack, climate change and forests campaigner for the Wilderness Society
Tasmania (TWS), recently returned from the UN climate negotiations for the post-Kyoto
climate deal in
Tillack said
that there is a shared understanding that the next climate deal must ensure the
reduction of global emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. In
order for a REDD mechanism or the next climate treaty to work it needs to focus
primarily on helping developing countries and indigenous peoples and local
communities protect their intact primary forests, end deforestation and stop
industrial logging of primary forests.
Tillack
said that as negotiations go on and countries realise the large sums of money
that could be available through REDD schemes, many countries are pushing for
the scope of REDD to be broadened from focusing on avoiding deforestation and
forest degradation to including afforestation and reforestation (plantations),
sustainable forest management (logging) and conservation.
This has
happened because some countries want to be paid to establish plantations and
tree crops, including palm oil trees. Other countries that have protected their
forests want to receive some form of compensation for foregoing previous and
future development opportunities, including industrial logging and mining.
Other countries want to get paid for planting and harvesting timber, palm oil
and other crops (afforestation and reforestation).
The inclusion
of plantations is a worrying development because if this type of activity is
included in REDD, it may lead to a subsidised increase in logging of primary
forests, and the conversion of natural forests to palm oil and fibre
plantations, like what is currently happening in Indonesia. This would be a climate and biodiversity
disaster.
This
perverse outcome is possible because the current definition of forests used in
the
Tillack
said that a natural forest is a biodiverse, resilient ecosystem that stores a
lot more carbon than a plantation or agricultural tree crop. It is vital that
if REDD is part of the climate deal it includes safeguards that would rule out
the conversion of natural forests to plantations, ensure the protection of the
human rights and the free, prior and informed consent and involvement of indigenous
peoples and local communities, and protects biodiversity and water supplies.
There are
of a number of trial REDD schemes that have begun since the UN talks in
It is vital
that the global community, governments and NGOs understand that REDD has the ability
to be a positive opportunity for developing countries, indigenous peoples and
local communities if it has a clear scope and the right safeguards and funding
mechanisms are used. Without adequate safeguards and a focus on forest
protection, REDD could drive the displacement of local communities, neglect indigenous
peoples’ needs and rights and it could have a negative impact on the natural
environment and its contribution to reducing the impact of climate change.
At the
moment a majority of countries are supporting the market-driven financing model
for REDD. They believe a market mechanism would provide larger amounts of money
than a fund. A market mechanism would mean that the market drivers -- corporations
and governments -- would control REDD initiatives, instead of local communities,
and would exclude the involvement of civil society. This is a concern because
of the high prevalence of corruption and the lack of good governance structures in some developing
countries. It could also result in perverse environmental outcomes, especially
if adequate rules and safeguards are not included in REDD.
Most NGOs
and indigenous peoples’ groups are more supportive of a fund-based mechanism as
it is considered to be a lot safer and makes it easier for local communities to
be involved in protecting their forests. For example, Greenpeace is proposing a
fund called ``Forests for Climate’’, which could make funds available to protect tropical
forests as early as 2009. Industrialised countries would be allowed to meet
some of their overall emission-reduction targets by helping developing
countries protect forests, in addition to making deeper cuts in their domestic
energy and industrial emissions,
Victoria
Tauli-Corpuz and Parshuram Tamang, in their paper commissioned by the United
Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, dated May 2007
(http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/6session_crp6.doc), wrote that
“The International Panel on Forests cites, among others, discriminatory
international trade, trade distorting policies, structural adjustment
programmes, external debt, market distortions and market failure, perverse
subsidies, undervaluation of wood and non-wood forest products, and poorly
regulated investments as the international underlying causes of deforestation.”
WALHI says that “the problem of deforestation in developing countries cannot be
divorced from discussions on international trade and Northern patterns of
consumption”. Global climate justice demands that industrialised countries take
responsibility for this issue, first by addressing their own deforestation
problems and second by funding forest preservation projects in developing
countries.
Speaking of
addressing our own land-clearing and logging problems, according to the
Wilderness Society, an average of 20,000 hectares of native forest is logged
and burnt each year in
Recent research from the
We have our
own “burning season” in Tasmania, usually in autumn when the conditions are
right for the state forestry department Forestry Tasmania to use helicopters to
drop napalm-like petroleum jelly onto the piles of wood and debris left in logging coupes to
create a high-intensity fire, described by the industry as “regeneration burns”.
Forestry Tasmania executive general manager Hans Drielsma stated that they did
not need to measure the emissions from these burns, telling a Senate Select
Committee on Climate Policy on April 23, 2009, "There's no precise work
that's been done around that and frankly it's not of any great scientific
interest for us to do that."
The
question was thrown up to the audience by Sun and the writer/director and
co-producer Cathy Henkel at the
When asked
how you could determine what price to place on these forests, Sun said that it
would need to be a price that made it more appealing for business to protect
them for their carbon rather than turn them into woodchips.
However, unlike
Australian Greens party
leader Bob Brown, speaking at a forest campaign fundraiser in Hobart on June 5,
made the very good point that if only a fraction of the A$7.4 billion promised
in free permits to the fossil fuel industry in the first two years of the CPRS
was instead allocated to saving our forests, we could protect them in an
instant and see a big drop in overall greenhouse gas emissions.
Tillack said
that developing countries want to see the rich industrialised countries like
There are
some examples of avoided deforestation in
With the
latest science on the pace of arctic ice melts and the ever-increasing threat
of passing crucial climate tipping points, it has become clear that taking
strong and urgent action on climate change is imperative. What could be easier
than placing a moratorium on logging of native forests to ensure one of our
most effective carbon stores are protected?
Tillack believes
that the best way to help secure a safe climate is to take action to convince
our politicians to make sure
“We could
create a biodiversity fund to support local community-based projects for restoring
degraded forests and natural ecosystems across
At the
moment we don’t account for our emissions from ``managed forests’’ or the logging
of native forests. Tillack said that “the proposed CPRS scheme aims to include forests
in 2010. This could result in economic incentives for big companies to plant
plantations for carbon credits and log native forests for ongoing woodchips
exports and wood products. Hence most environment groups do not want forests included
in the CPRS, and have asked the government to ensure that the protection of
forests is a complimentary measure, and part of a suite of measures to solve
the climate change problem.”
The Burning Season plugs a website called ``Ten Things
You Can Do’’, which claims that sustainability and abundance can ``co-exist’’
and “the businessman and the environmentalist can join forces”. It promotes
many actions related to changing our own lifestyles or donating money, such as
using your car less, choosing energy efficient appliances, reducing meat
consumption and donating to various rainforest conservation or orangutan protection
schemes. Fortunately, it also promotes broader action such as becoming “a
visionary leader in your community”, checking out the Australian Conservation
Foundation Green Collar Jobs website, signing Greenpeace’s petition for a 100%
renewable energy future, encouraging school tree-planting schemes, taking part
in debates around the Copenhagen UN Climate Change Conference and joining the
Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
System change
However throughout the film it promotes the idea that one person can make a
difference. The idea of collective political action is not even hinted at. Of
course, it is true that one person can achieve a great deal, but faced with the
biggest global crisis in history, what we need most of all is system change. We
need to change how things are produced (especially electricity), how people
travel from A to B, how food is grown and how our natural resources are used
Powerful corporate interests currently have a lot of influence over these
things, meaning that we need to use the untapped power we all have when we join
together – people’s power -- to plot our path towards a new sustainable society
and to push our governments to act. Discussing and debating the issues
presented by The
Burning Season could be a helpful step along this path.
[The Burning Season was
screened in 2008 by broadcast partners ABC (Australia), BBC (UK), CBC (Canada)
and distributed worldwide by National Geographic International. It is produced
by the Film Finance
Corporation Australia and Hatchling Productions and narrated by
popular Australian actor Hugh Jackman. It is currently being screened in some
cinemas in Australia. Susan Austin is a climate campaigner in Tasmania, and is a member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective, a Marxist organisation affiliated to the Socialist Alliance of Australia.]
Note
[1] Chart 3.6