Understanding REDD

On October 30, panelists Tia Nelson,
Nigel Purvis,
and Steve
Schwartzman discussed the new market mechanism, REDD —
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation — that aims to
allow residents of tropical forest properties to earn more money from standing
forests than from their removal. Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent
of all carbon emissions into the atmosphere, more than the combined emissions
of every car, truck, ship, plane and train on the planet. The panelists
were introduced by Roger Stone, guest editor for the Washington Monthly’s Special
Report in their July/August issue, "A
Clear Cut Crisis." The question and answer period was moderated by Paul
Glastris, editor in chief of the Washington
Monthly.

The REDD concept is part of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill,
which would allow U.S. companies to offset the carbon they emit by paying
tropical countries and their citizens not to cut down their rainforests. A
market-based system that includes REDD will also be on the agenda at the
UN-sponsored talks in Copenhagen this December, where representatives hope to
hash out a new climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which
expires in 2012.

Steve Schwartzman,
Anthropologist and Director of Tropical Forest Policy and Co-Director of the International
Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, discussed how climate change effects local communities
and the emerging role of REDD as an important component of the post-Kyoto global
climate change regime. Schwartzman covered the state of play international
negotiations, and the science background to creating large scale incentives for
reducing deforestation and forest degradation through an international climates
treaty. He also discussed Brazil
as the major laboratory for this issue on the ground today.

Tia Nelson, Co-Chair of the
Task Force on Global Warming for Governor Doyle of Wisconsin, spoke of her recent work at the
Task Force and its global implications. Nelson discussed the bill currently being drafted
for Wisconsin:
its strong emissions reduction target, endorsement of a federal cap and trade
program, aggressive conservation and efficiency measures, and aggressive
renewable portfolio standard. Nelson is currently assisting in
the formation a new coalition of state governors in the US, Indonesia, and the Brazilian
Amazon. Internationally as well as domestically in coal-dependent areas, Nelson
said, transition strategies to help mitigate costs are needed.

Lastly, Nigel Purvis,
President of Climate Advisers and Executive Director of the new, bipartisan and
multi-disciplinary private commission on climate change and tropical forests, stressed
the importance of the United
States playing a leading role in helping
limit deforestation in the developing world. He detailed the Commission’s
findings and recommendations that if adopted will, they believe, allow
developing countries to reduce deforestation in half by 2020 and to achieve
zero net deforestation globally by 2030. These are ambitious goals, Pervis
said, but they are achievable in the current political environment with bipartisan
cooperation.

Participants