Bright REDD Spot in Otherwise Dismal Copenhagen Accord

“We recognize the crucial role of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emission by forests and agree on the need to provide positive incentives to such actions through the immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDD-plus, to enable the mobilization of financial resources from developed countries.”

19 December   2009 | COPENHAGEN | That’s the good news on REDD from the otherwise disappointing Copenhagen Accord, which was recognized in the wee hours of Saturday morning by delegates to COP 15 in Copenhagen after being put forward by the US, China, India and South Africa and supported by the Coalition of Rainforest Nations but shunned by many island states and African nations.

US President Barack Obama framed the deal as a step towards building a bridge between the developed and developing worlds, and EU President José Barroso complained that the G-77 was placing too much emphasis on money and not enough on mitigation results.   At one point, he said that the EU had offered to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 if the developing world came on board, but the offer was shot down.

The Accord does not carry the weight of a Protocol, but rather hopes to act as a stepping stone to a meeting next year in Mexico City, Mexico.

The specific REDD policy text has not yet been posted in electronic form, but the methodological text has been posted and looks to be final.

Negotiators on the policy side say they’ve come close to resolving the debate over national vs. sub-national accounting – specifically, in the relevant text, they have removed the brackets around “national” accounting but kept them around “sub-national”, and have removed the “s” from references to national emissions levels in the paragraph on accounting.

The most recent text I saw, which was around 2am Saturday morning and probably pretty close to being done, failed to include two provisions that other sources had told me would be included – namely, a specific reference to deforestation targets, and a specific reference to private-sector financing mechanisms – although the latter is between the lines throughout the text.

The US apparently managed to have the word “development” inserted into the section on technology transfer, so it now reads “technology development and transfer”.  

If a big agreement is reached in Mexico, the REDD text will suddenly burst to life within that.