By Gaulbert Sutherland
in Oslo, Norway
Over 50 developed and developing countries yesterday agreed to partner to save forests, setting up a common framework to monitor efforts.
“In today’s global markets forests are worth more dead than alive. Today we commit to change that equation. It must pay off not to cut the tree but to leave it standing”, declared Jens Stoltenberg, the Prime Minister of Norway. “The partnership we are establishing here today will incorporate new and existing deforestation efforts into one common framework with the help of the United Nations and the World Bank”, he added.
Optimistic Heads-of-State, Ministers, other country representatives and high-level representatives of international financial institutions praised the deal in Norway’s capital, Oslo yesterday. 52 countries including Guyana agreed to be ‘REDD+ Partners’. In the UN approved scheme forest countries are paid to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). So far, US$4B, which includes money pledged after the Copenhagen climate summit, is available to fight deforestation in tropical forest countries, which accounts for 17% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas is a major contributor to global warming. The US$4B is less than the figure that organizers had hoped would be pledged at the conference.
Stoltenberg said that developed countries must provide adequate and sustainable funding and it must be results-based. Developing countries must be in the driver seats and they must put in place efficient national policies; consult with and embrace relevant stakeholders; and set up systems to monitor, report and verify reductions in deforestation, he said. Multilateral institutions must help build capacity and support implementation, he added.
“The whole aim is to make this part of a legally binding global agreement”, Stoltenberg told reporters at the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference held at the Holmenkollen Park Hotel Rica in the surrounding hills of Oslo. The sooner the partnership can be part of a global agreement the better, he said pointing out that over 50 countries had agreed in a concrete area and this is significant.
Questioned by reporters on how rich countries can pay when dealing with high budget deficits, he noted that the United Nations General Secretary had started an advisory group on climate finance which also includes him and President Bharrat Jagdeo. He said money can be garnered from different sources including public or government money. The US$4B available is money pledged from the coffers of Germany, Denmark, France, the United States, Norway and others. If the figures are going to reach US$30B or US$100B there is no way that amount can be mobilized without private sector involvement, the Prime Minister said. “So in one way or the other we have to add private money to the public money”, he said adding that Norway knows how to do this.
Stoltenberg said that different ideas were discussed in the advisory group including asking for voluntary contributions. In addition to this, he said, they are looking at how to mobilize money from the different kinds of “carbon pricing”. He explained that this can be in the form of “carbon taxing”, emissions trading, a charge on air tickets, maritime transportation and so on. “We need carbon pricing because it gives a double positive effect. It gives the right incentives to different users and consumers to change their behaviour and second, it provides a source of finance”, he said stressing that government and private, voluntary money is needed but the most important source of finance would be carbon pricing.
The Norwegian Prime Minister stressed the importance of the partnership pointing to the numbers of countries that are participating. He said that more than 50 countries have agreed on principles and a framework “so just the magnitude itself is important”. Secondly, the main purpose of the partnership is to coordinate because there are different efforts and different actions but without any coordination and therefore there is double reckoning of both mitigation and financial flows, he said. “So now we are going to establish one common framework, with one common database with one common way of measuring loans or grants, tonnes, or long term, short term…”, the Prime Minister said adding that by establishing one framework there is going to be a transparent, open way where the measure of financial flows, tonnes of carbon and the different actions can be recorded in a standardized way.
This gives a platform to mobilize financial resources, he added.
Countries will share experiences and learn from each other. The partnership is the framework and it now has to be filled with concrete actions, he added.
Further, he said, even if the UNFCCC negotiations on forest take time, work at the partnership will continue. Stoltenberg said that he hopes that forests can be part of an agreement at the next climate summit in Cancun, Mexico later this year.
In addition to heads of state and government, including President Jagdeo and ministers from a number of key countries, the Oslo Conference also brought together the heads of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), representatives of the World Bank and the regional development banks, and representatives of indigenous peoples and civil society. Britain’s Prince Charles and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai also attended and expressed their strong support for the partnership while messages of support were received from UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-Moon and others.
Indigenous groups represented called for free, prior and informed consent and Norway’s Minister of the Environment, Erik Solheim assured that the process would be transparent. Prince Charles, a keynote speaker praised the leaders for working to combat deforestation. He said that transparency was key in brokering a binding global climate agreement. “In this period of increased stringency, governments will need to know that every dollar made available will be spent wisely in order to avoid any unnecessary duplication,” he said.
