May 21, 2012
Developing countries will not be incentivised to change business -as- usual practices and invest in REDD+ schemes until there’s certainty that the financial rewards that have been used to promote the forest carbon mechanism will materialise in the future, said experts at the sidelines of the climate change talks in Bonn.
“Cash is king,” said Maria Brockhaus, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), at a side event held alongside the meetings...
It is heartening indeed to learn that Bangladesh has been nominated by the least developed countries (LDCs) to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help vulnerable countries fight climate risks. This was disclosed by Dr Hasan Mahmud, Minister for Environment and Forests at a seminar on ‘Adaptation Programme to Face Climate Risk’ held in the capital recently. It is obvious that Bangladesh’s nomination to the GCF is the recognition of its role by the climatic vulnerable countries...
May 17, 2012
Two critical determinants of REDD+ success moving forward are: (1) developing and implementing REDD+ safeguard information systems (SIS) and (2) fostering effective private sector engagement in the REDD+ value chain.
To explore these issues, an expert meeting was held in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 2–3, 2012, under the Building REDD+ Policy Capacity for Developing Country Negotiators and Land Managers project. The workshop was delivered by IISD and the ASB Partnership for...
The eighth UN-REDD Programme Policy Board meeting was held in Asunción, Paraguay from 25-26 March 2012. There was also a joint meeting of the governing bodies of the UN-REDD Programme and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility on 27 March 2012 at the Granados Park Hotel back-to-back with the UN-REDD Programme Eighth Policy Board meeting.
Please...
May 16, 2012
Discussions on how mitigation and adaptation funds will be raised and used in the second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol from 2013-2020 will be key during the climate change talks in Bonn to ensure that REDD+ can move forward. Forest-rich nations cannot wait much longer without progress in financing, said an expert.
REDD+ cannot wait for the new climate treaty that is scheduled to start in 2020 before receiving adequate funding to move past pilot projects, said Louis...
May 15, 2012
Amid the hysteria whipped up over the cuts to its 2012 budget, it may seem trite to state that it is the government which has failed signally to deliver on the steps that would put the designated sums in its hands for the Low Carbon Development Strategy projects. This stark fact has not however deterred the government from making the most outrageous charges over cuts and blaming the opposition for endangering every single project it can think of. In a way, the opposition’s cuts have...
May 11, 2012
California on Wednesday released an updated draft of its cap-and-trade regulations that for the first time includes language that would link its carbon market to a similar scheme in the Canadian province of Quebec.
The draft language called for the mutual acceptance of compliance instruments like allowances and offset credits between the two jurisdictions. It also called for a common allowance registry and auction, and included provisions for tracking allowances which...
April 23, 2012
Interest-free loans are to be made available for carbon-cutting projects in some of the world’s least developed countries under a pioneering new UN scheme.
The loans will be made available to support the design, validation and registration of projects under the UN-approved carbon offset scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
Under the new loan scheme poor countries and those with fewer than 10 projects registered under the CDM will be...
April 20, 2012
Guyana has received more than a quarter of the US$250 million promised to it by the government of Norway for its part in protecting the Amazon rainforest from degradation and deforestation.
This was shared by Guyana’s prime minister, Sam Hinds, as he addressed the official opening of the 13th Annual Caribbean Conference On Sustainable Tourism Development (STC-13) of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), which took place at the Guyana International Conference Centre...
April 19, 2012
Developing countries are struggling to make a new eco forestry rewards scheme work, says a new report. Of 99 countries that signed up to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) at the UN climate change meeting, 89 have ‘very large or medium’ problems achieving the requirements, says the study.
For REDD+ to succeed, the world’s richer nations must provide more help so developing nations can measure and monitor the amount of...