Logging would just move over the mountain: Bill Hare, of
Greenpeace, explained the reason for the objection. He said: “The key
loophole from the climate point of view was that people would say,
‘look, we won’t log this area of forest and we will gain the credits
from this avoided deforestation’; then you could not be sure that …
logging did not just move across the mountain range to another forest
and occur in an uncontrolled area.â€Â
PNG proposal based on country’s total performance: The Papua New
Guinea proposal was that rather than earning emission credits from
individual projects, the system could be based on the performance of
entire countries in reducing the loss of their native forests.
Much-needed financial incentives: Kevin Conrad, director of the
Coalition for Rainforest Nations, said this approach would provide
much-needed financial incentives to slow the rate of tropical
deforestation.
Original decision a big mistake: John Niles of the Climate
Community and Biodiversity alliance, said many countries were starting
to realise that the decision to exclude forest conservation from Kyoto
funding was a big mistake. He believed the Papua New Guinea proposal
could put this right.
Greenpeace sees merit in new proposal: Greenpeace’s Hare
accepted that basing the carbon credit system on national deforestation
caps rather than individual projects would remove many of his original
concerns – although there was still the potential for the emissions to
“leak” across borders.
Nothing can be done until after 2012: The proposal being debated
in Montreal was only to start a negotiating process to look at these
incentives, to reward the services to the climate played by forests.
This was because it was too late to change the system covering the
first period of Kyoto targets between 2008 and 2012.
Serious anomaly in present situation: But it might eventually
end what many saw as a serious anomaly, and help rectify the bizarre
economics which placed a higher value on a scorched wasteland than a
richly diverse forest.
Reference: Digest of latest news reported on website of Climate
Change Secretariat of United Nations Framework on Climate Change
Control (UNFCCC). 28 November. Address: PO Box 260 124, D-53153 Bonn.
Germany. Phone: : (49-228) 815-1005, Fax: (49-228) 815-1999. Email: press@unfccc.int
http://www.unfccc.int
Erisk Net, 2/12/2005