 |
A Special Report on Selected Side Events at the 2-13 June 2008 Bonn, Germany |
| Daily Web Coverage and Reports | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Web | 2 June | 3 June | 4 June | 5 June | 6 June | 7 June | 9 June | 10 June | 11 June | 12 June | 13 June | ||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
| HTML |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
Events on Saturday, 07 June 2008
Innovative Financing Mechanisms
Presented by Germany and the UK
Karsten Sach, Germany, explained that the German International Climate Change Initiative will allocate funding, in addition to ODA, for sustainable energy projects, as well as for adaptation and biodiversity projects with climate relevance. He indicated that the criteria for choosing projects will include large emission reductions.
Carolina Fuentes, Mexico, highlighted that the advantages of Mexico’s proposed World Climate Change Fund include: increased access to financial and technological resources; broader participation; and a predictable and verifiable regime. She said contributions to the Fund should be made in accordance with common but differentiated responsibilities and could be determined on the basis of population, gross domestic product, and/or greenhouse gas emissions.
Ian Noble, World Bank, explained that the Bank is developing two new climate change funds, with a goal of testing and demonstrating ways of scaling up financing. He stressed that this is a “learning-by-doing” project.
Christoph Bals, Germanwatch, discussed innovative risk-sharing instruments, noting some emerging insurance schemes in developing countries, such as Malawi and Mongolia, to help farmers and herders protect themselves against weather-related losses. He said it is time for more creativity on finance and adaptation.
Participants discussed: the rationale for allowing developed countries to access some portion of the World Climate Change Fund; the extent to which the World Bank funding mechanisms would be new and additional; and the role of public and private finance.
 |
| L-R: Carolina Fuentes, Mexico; Karsten Sach, Germany; Jan Thompson, UK; Ian Noble, World Bank; and Christoph Bals, Germanwatch |
 |
 |
 |
| Karsten Sach, Germany, argued that meeting financial challenges is not only about climate change mitigation but also about global justice and the survival of humankind. | Carolina Fuentes, Mexico, said contributions to the World Climate Change Fund should be based on the principles of polluter pays, equity, efficiency and payment capacity. | Ian Noble, World Bank, stressed that the Bank has taken great care to recognize the primacy of the UNFCCC, and that the two funding mechanisms have sunset clauses to ensure that they do not undermine any decision made in Copenhagen or beyond. |
|
|
Reducing emissions from deforestation: a unifying mechanism and cost estimates
Presented by the University of East Anglia
Bernardo Strassburg, University of East Anglia, introduced a REDD mechanism in which developing countries would receive two incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation. The first incentive would be based on reductions relative to historic emissions, and the second on reductions below what they would emit if they followed an agreed global baseline rate. He said the relative weight afforded to each incentive could be adjusted by country and over time to increase the political viability of the mechanism. He highlighted benefits of the mechanism, including its potential to: incorporate all countries; be flexible; and be supported by a combination of market- and fund-based financing.
Jeff Price, UNEP, said many IPCC and other emission scenarios implicitly assume that some level of REDD will have occurred by 2050. He emphasized that areas with high levels of carbon stocks and biodiversity should be priority areas for REDD financing, while alternative funding mechanisms should be considered for areas with low carbon stocks and high biodiversity, or low levels of carbon stocks and biodiversity but high values of other types. He suggested that credits resulting from REDD projects with biodiversity co-benefits could be sold at a premium, and the additional funds could be funneled back into protecting areas with low carbon stocks but high biodiversity benefits.
Participants stressed that local-level capacity building, livelihood restructuring, and imperfect information and execution of any REDD mechanism will increase its estimated cost.
 |
 |
| Bernardo Strassburg, University of East Anglia, said revised estimates place the cost of the proposed REDD mechanism at slightly more than US$20 billion annually to curb 90% of global emissions from deforestation. | Jeff Price, UNEP, outlined research findings revealing that only 15% of global carbon stocks are currently located in protected areas. |
|
|
LULUCF approaches and environmental integrity
Presented by The Wilderness Society
Virginia Young, The Wilderness Society, showed a short film on deforestation in Tasmania, which has one of the highest rates of land clearing for its size in the world. The film showed how supposedly sustainable forest management, in which indigenous trees are replanted with plantation forests, is in fact releasing sizable carbon emissions because burning practices are used to clear the original forest.
Chris Henschel, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, explained that most Canadian forestry involves the logging of pristine forests, which are converted into commercial forests with shorter rotation ages. He highlighted recent carbon stock reductions resulting from logging, and showed the geographic extent of intact forests and their ecosystems that are threatened by existing logging tenders and oil and gas allocations.
Sean Cadman, The Wilderness Society, stressed that, relative to natural forests, plantation forests have: smaller carbon stocks; shorter carbon residence times; and greater vulnerability to fire. He added that current accounting data for forests are based largely on commercial forests, which are not the same as natural forests. He called for reduced deforestation in both developed and developing countries, and said introducing mandatory accounting of deforestation is critical to current negotiations.
Participants discussed: state ownership of Tasmanian and Canadian forests; problems with certifying sustainable forests;and the advantages of forest protection over afforestation.
 |
 |
 |
| Chris Henschel, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, noted that Kyoto Protocol accounting does not include the loss of carbon stocks resulting from converting natural forests to plantations. | Virginia Young, The Wilderness Society, drew attention to high carbon density forests in Australia and Canada, and questioned what forest degradation means in developed countries in light of REDD and LULUCF discussions. | Sean Cadman, The Wilderness Society, said incentives to end deforestation and ensure long-term protection must encompass substituting logging with eco-logging rather than industrial logging and monoculture plantations. |
|
|
| Daily Web Coverage and Reports | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Web | 2 June | 3 June | 4 June | 5 June | 6 June | 7 June | 9 June | 10 June | 11 June | 12 June | 13 June | ||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
| HTML | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
Digimarc and the Digimarc logo are registered trademarks of Digimarc Corporation. The "Digimarc Digital Watermarking" Web Button is a trademark of Digimarc Corporation, used with permission.
Please e-mail the Digital Editor should you have any questions regarding the content of this page.
| Back to IISD RS "Linkages" home | Visit IISDnet | Send e-mail to ENB |
© 2008, IISD. All rights reserved.