Indonesia has the dubious distinction of being both a world-champion deforester and one of the countries most likely to suffer from climate change – all-in-all, a perfect location for December's Climate Change Conference in Bali, where a central question will be whether to grant emission reduction credits for saving existing forests. In this first of three stories, the Ecosystem Marketplace talks to advocates and opponents of using 'avoided deforestation' for offsetting carbon emissions.
Most people attending the Climate Change Conference in Bali agree: avoided deforestation, often referred to as REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), will play a role in whatever regime replaces the Kyoto Protocol once it expires in 2012. But as the Ecosystem Marketplace finds out, the devil – and debate – is in the details.
It’s been a busy week for voluntary carbon, with the Voluntary Carbon Standard issuing its first credits for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting healthy land use, and BNP Paribas inking a $50-million deal to develop projects that protect threatened rainforests and lock carbon in trees. Both of these developments are in Eastern Africa, but China also delivered a good chunk of news in this weeks V-Carbon Newsletter.
Findings from the 2012 Voluntary Carbon Markets Report, slated to have its North American launch next week in Washington D.C., show significant changes in volume and pricing on forest carbon projects, in part due to the European financial crisis and uncertainties in REDD finance.
One of the exciting movements coming out of the Rio+20 Summit this week is the Code REDD campaign, which hopes to reduce emissions through pledges of offsets by corporate buyers as well as to raise awareness of REDD. Also, TNC recently registered three forest carbon projects under the VCS, and the Executive Summary of the Voluntary Carbon Markets report has been published in Spanish.
In Late 2004, Australia's CO2 Group Ltd. became the first company in the world to receive accreditation for the sale of forest-based carbon sequestration credits in a functioning GHG emissions markets. The Ecosystem Marketplace takes a look at the transaction and asks how it fits in with similar attempts to deal with the issue of forest-based sequestration worldwide.
From August 6-8, IUCN and Katoomba held a workshop on the legal and institutional frameworks related to ecosystem services deals in Latin America. The workshop’s objective was to present findings from preliminary scoping work that had been conducted on the design of carbon and water deals in the Andes-Amazon region. Over the course of three […]
