Bali progress on forests and tech transfers despite EU-US row [fr]
With the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali set to wind up amidst outrage over US-led opposition to binding emissions cuts, delegates have agreed to include efforts to curb deforestation and to promote clean technology transfers to developing countries in the Bali 'roadmap'.
Efforts to mitigate the loss of tropical forests, particularly in the Amazon basin, parts of Africa and South-East Asia, will feature in the climate change negotiation roadmap to be finalised in Bali today (14 December).
Deforestation accounted for 20% of global CO2 emissions in the 1990s, according to UN figures, and the ability of tropical and other forests to sequester CO2 is considered crucial for mitigating climate change.
But while the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows developing countries to implement afforestation and reforestation projects, progress has so far been limited, and substantive talks on reducing CO2 emissions from deforestation began only two years ago following the UN Climate Change Conference in Montreal (COP 11).
Bali paves the way for an expansion of the system. While details of the plans remain subject to negotiations, developing countries will be able to benefit from a so-called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD) scheme, whereby certified preserved forest areas can be traded as carbon offset credits to developed countries, according to 11 December statements by Indonesia's foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda.
The efforts will receive a boost from the World Bank, which in October announced a new $300 million forest preservation fund as well as a $200 million pilot programme that features carbon credits granted in exchange for the prevention of deforestation.
Meanwhile, developing countries will also benefit from a new clean technology transfer mechanism (EurActiv 13/12/07).
The agreements on forests and technologies were overshadowed by the continued opposition, by the US and other nations including Japan, to the inclusion of a binding CO2 emissions reduction target in the Bali roadmap.
The EU delegation may ultimately agree to a compromise text that drops any reference to a 25% to 40% binding cut on CO2 emissions by 2020, which was previously advocated by the EU, in exchange for a commitment to reduce CO2 by at least 50% by 2050, according to a leaked draft proposal obtained by Reuters.
In a sign of heightened tensions between the European and US delegations at Bali, the EU has indicated that it may boycott a US-organised major emitters conference scheduled for January 2008 in Washington.
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