Bonn Climate Talks Part 5: LULU Chefs Decry Logging Loopholes

Participants in the climate change negotiations were greeted this morning by the "LULU Chefs," who were demanding that the logging loophole be closed in the negotiations on LULUCF (Land use, land-use change and forestry).

The fun demonstration by tcktcktck was put on to keep attention on the issue as governments met for a closed-door session today, discussing the emission accounting rules for forestry. Our campaign is having a visible effect on the negotiations as countries are paying much more attention and seem to be taking our concerns more seriously than in the past.

This is the most active and volatile area of the negotiations here. From hour to hour we hear different accounts of what's going on and the deals that may be made. It's frustrating to have to fish for information and get partial accounts of what's going on. It's easy to make hasty judgments so it's important to be careful to have all the information. Today were learned that developing countries proposed a review process to make sure that the choice of forestry emission baselines by industrialized countries is transparent.

We continue to insist that emissions must be reduced from forestry and land use. Nothing else makes sense in the context of a climate agreement. Some countries definitely support this goal but how this support is translated into action in the broader political context is always uncertain. We will meet with many countries tomorrow to continue making our case.

There will be another round of closed negotiations tomorrow followed by an open session on Saturday where developments from the week will be aired in public.

This is what happens when you stick people in a corner to talk to themselves

I was having a conversation today with an industrialized country delegate who was apologizing for not being a forester and therefore not really getting all of the intricacies and complexities and rationales of forest management carbon accounting.

I replied, "So, if you're not a forester, doesn't it seem strange to you that the rules have to be designed to ensure there is no negative impact on the forest sector for cutting trees? Why should the forest sector be the only one who should choose whether or not to reduce emissions rather than be forced to?"

The answer was telling and was something that I have often lamented: it's a structural problem resulting from the special status that this sector has - from the beginning it was an add-on with its own set of rules. What that has meant in practice is most decision-makers don't get it or try to, so it is delegated to the technical experts. What do you expect to happen when you ask a bunch of foresters to come up with rules for the forest sector? Or as this person put it, "If you stick a bunch of people in the corner of the room to talk to each other they will come up with funny ideas."

The ideas in this case are shameful: a set of draft rules that openly excuses all responsibility for emissions. Of all other sectors in this process we are demanding transformative change. In the forest sector we are demanding nothing. In fact we are doing worse than this - we are telling countries that if they like they can make things worse.

We are demanding emission reductions of 40% or more from industrialized countries. What are we demanding of the forest sectors in these countries? At most we are asking them to continue business-as-usual. If they do better we give them credits.

The only hope at this point is that developing countries negotiate hard on this. They are currently asking for the same thing we are: accountability for changes in emissions from 1990. I'm hoping we will see a new statement from them in the next couple of days.

Update from UN Bangkok Forestry and Land Use Negotiations

We just had a briefing with the Chair and vice-Chair of the negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol and the co-chairs of the negotiations on land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).

The formal work on LULUCF is focusing on two tasks:

• Trying to reduce the number of options in the draft text of the agreement on accounting rules;
• Countries are presenting forest data to explain their national circumstances and why they are interested in the options they are supporting.

Parallel to this, countries that have put forward specific proposals on key issues are meeting together to see if they can come to an agreement between them; this agreement would then be forwarded to the larger group. The issues are: reference levels (against which performance will be compared); harvested wood products; the impact of natural disturbances; cross-cutting issues and "other accounting options."

The big problem for those trying to observe and hold this process accountable is that ALL of these negotiations are being held behind closed doors.

Rather than behind closed doors, some were making their case very clearly out front of the main entrance of the conference centre: Protect Forests and Indigenous Peoples' Rights! The protest was organized by the International Youth Delegation.

Photo credit: Joshua Kahn Russell, Rainforest Action Network

You can't keep a carbon man down

It's been a busy time in my office with funding proposals, work planning and meetings leading up to today's federal budget in Canada, but I have been squeezing in some work on forest carbon...

As part of the Climate Action Network International's Working Group on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry, I've been participating in some really interesting discussions on forest accounting under the Kyoto Protocol. We've been talking about how to deal with emissions from natural disturbances, whether emissions credits from forests should be discounted, how to best protect biodiversity, and a number of other topics that would seem esoteric to all but the most engaged, but are nonetheless important to how forest carbon fluxes are measured and accounted for.

I've also been working with some colleagues on what could constitute a list of principles related to forest offsets. It has been a useful experience that Will certainly guide my input to the various processes underway to define offset systems for North America.

One of my colleagues made a very astute observation that I would like to share: the first choice we need to make when conceptualizing an offset framework is whether we want to follow the example of a regulatory model (such as the Clean Development Mechanism) or a voluntary model (such as the various existing voluntary offset systems). This choice is significant and will lead us down a path of more or less rigor. The former path seems undoubtedly to be the better one.