REDD stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. In broad terms it’s a scheme for taking areas of forest out of commercial exploitation. It would work by forest-owning countries being paid by others, notably the industrialised west, to preserve them as natural habitats and carbon stores.
The underlying premise for REDD is that forests combat climate change by soaking up greenhouse gas and locking in carbon, while the process of deforestation is allegedly responsible for 20% of global CO2 emissions. It has some big hitters behind it, including the World Bank, Greenpeace and the WWF and it is being backed for inclusion in the UN Bali climate change process, which is set to be ratified this year.
Now, however, the NGO World Growth has produced a study slamming REDD as flawed and recommending a more balanced global forestry policy, with sustainable management and timber production as an integral element.
Launched to coincide with the Poznan UN Climate Change Conference this week, the report challenges the calculation that is fundamental to the REDD scheme, that each time a tree is felled, world carbon stocks fall. In fact, it states, when timber is processed into wood products, the carbon remains stored.
World Growth says that REDD is driven by the environmental NGOs’ strategy to restrict commercial forestry and, in limiting timber harvesting and development of plantations, it would “risk damaging the economic welfare of developing countries”.
World Growth says its view is in tune with the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which stated that “long term a sustainable forest management strategy will generate the largest sustained [climate change] mitigation benefit”.
It concludes that REDD should be adapted into a pro-development strategy “in which everyone wins”, enabling developing countries to “foster productive forest industries where environmental values are protected and living standards increase”.
Let’s hope the UN at least listens.
