Het Klimaatakkoord gesloten in Parijs dat unaniem door 195 landen is goedgekeurd koppelt het tegengaan van temperatuurstijging met het stoppen van de ontbossing.

Het belang van bossen wordt steeds weer benadrukt in de 31-pagina tellende overeenkomst die verplicht stelt dat alle landen “putten en reservoirs dienen te behouden en te verbeteren” – codewoorden voor bossen en andere ecosystemen, waaronder oceanen en moerassen, die CO2 uit de lucht opslaan.

Parijs versus Kyoto
Een belangrijke vooruitgang, omdat het Protocol van Kyoto bossen uitdrukkelijk uitsloot. Het klimaatakkoord omvat een pakket van REDD+ elementen waarover al meer dan tien jaar wordt onderhandeld tussen ontwikkelde en ontwikkelingslanden. De overeenkomst in Parijs is een zeer sterk signaal voor verdere promotie van REDD+. De overeenkomst benadrukt hoe belangrijk het stoppen van ontbossing is voor het tegengaan van klimaatverandering. Het opnemen van REDD+ in de overeenkomst is een ‘recommitment’ voor de overheid en de particuliere sector om het behoud van bossen te ondersteunen.

Waar komt de nadruk op bossen vandaan?
Het is essentieel dat we ontbossing verminderen tot nul om binnen de 1.5 graden Celsius temperatuurstijging te blijven. Zonder bossen, lukt dat niet. Het bewijs van de commitment komt echter de komende jaren wanneer het klimaatakkoord uitgevoerd gaat worden om te zien of bossen inderdaad worden bewaard.

Afspraken over bosbescherming
Op initiatief van IUCN Nederland kwam tijdens de Klimaattop een groep bestaande uit overheden, bedrijven, investeerders en maatschappelijke organisaties samen om te bespreken hoe REDD+ en value chain initiatieven beter kunnen worden gekoppeld.

Belangrijkste onderwerp van discussie is hoe het bedrijfsleven en de publieke sector beter kunnen samenwerken. Overheden kunnen bijdragen aan het creëren van de juiste stimulerende omgeving en incentives. Bedrijven en investeerders kunnen ervoor zorgen dat zij REDD+ ondersteunen en dat prikkels doorsijpelen naar lokale boeren om hun positie te versterken.

Lees hieronder het volledige verslag van de IUCN private breakfast meeting.

Report private breakfast meeting on linking REDD+ and value chain initiatives

Paris, 5 December 2015

On 5 December 2015, a group of 30 leaders and practitioners from public, corporate, finance and multilateral organizations came together to discuss how REDD+ and value chain initiatives can be better linked. Main topic of discussion is how the corporate and public sector can better work together. Governments can help create the right enabling environment and incentives. Companies and investors could make sure that they support the governance and monitoring systems that have already been put in place under REDD+ and that incentives trickle down to the lowest levels to strengthen the role that local farmers can play.

The challenges:

• Governments have built national REDD+ frameworks and systems for monitoring, reporting and verification and some companies have been investing in REDD+, but the absence of a strong carbon price prevent REDD+ to move into the next phase where companies scale up investments in REDD+ programs.
• Despite capital available, investors willing to invest in REDD+, have difficulty to identify bankable projects. The value of carbon credits is unpredictable and dependent on rules set by governments. There is a lack of stable price signals.
• Value chain companies commit to ambitious zero-deforestation targets but are unable to commit to pay premiums for sustainably produced commodities. Also, about half of the deforestation impact can’t be controlled in the value chain because it comes from small-holder farmers.
• Companies are willing to restructure supply chains. There is capital available, but they can’t finance the entire value chain themselves.
• Supply of sustainable commodities is often absent and value chains are not transparent. If supply is there, for example of sustainable leather, then long-term contracts are possible.

Ways Forward

• Practitioners have to come out of their silos and explore common ground for collaboration. Government could give support linking commodity value chain initiatives to the developments that are taking place in transparency monitoring.
• The rapid development of transparency platforms make deforestation and its movements visible and help in dialogue with frontrunners and the leveling of the playing field.
• The announcement of Unilever and Marks & Spencer for preferential sourcing from areas with jurisdictional REDD+ arrangements indicate how the linking of REDD+ and value chain initiatives could lead to new types of public-private partnerships.
• Government funding for example could be used to aggregate and train small-holder farmers and to make the value chain more transparent.
• REDD+ should open national registries for deforestation-free value chains and include a clear definition is needed for “deforestation-free”.
• Development banks could channel funding with long-term loans if project and business risks of the REDD+ initiative are covered.
• Norway, UK and Germany show how important political leadership is. They called for ambitions plans in the 2015-2020 and reciprocated it by raising the bar for REDD+ finance. The EU hopes governments and companies can collaborate and prioritise work in LCDs and middle income countries on REDD+ and co-benefits.
• Companies in the manufacturing and energy sectors that don’t have direct impacts on deforestation in their value chains could be better engaged in creating demand for REDD+ emission reduction permits. For this, REDD+ has to be better communicated. REDD+ should better link to tools that these companies work with such as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, Natural Capital Accounting and Cradle to Cradle.
• Initiatives such as the REDD+ Cocoa Landscape Program in Ghana and the Novo Campo Sustainable Beef program in Mata Grosso State in Brazil show that governments, private sector actors and civil society organizations can come out of their silo’s and create innovative value chain initiatives working with existing land use planning arrangements.
• Finance for REDD+ could be achieved through a guaranteed minimum price for REDD+ credits, for example through a public-private fund. Similar instruments such as German government’s REDD Early Movers Program and the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund could be developed for the private sector and be extended to other forest ecosystem services.
• Bonds can be issued for the re-structuring of value chains. Investors could issue long term loans at low interest rates for projects if risks such as around price of credits, local rights and agricultural development are managed and integrated.

Key takeaways

• We need more of these kinds of cross-sector meetings where not only financiers, companies and governments speak, but also practitioners that are building models on the ground that work.
• Transformative transparency is the future. It produces the story behind a product that we can trust is fair and sustainable.
• We have to change the rules of the game when it comes to business. We are taxing the ‘goods’ instead of the ‘bads’. The situation around fossil fuel subsidies says it all. Change is needed in rules for trade, subsidies and public procurement. People need to buy the good stuff.

Next steps

1. IUCN NL and Althelia Climate Fund discuss with Conservation International and Global Canopy Program the setting up of a “Forest Deal Room” to organise regular meetings, with smaller sub-sets of actors, to look at the issues in specific landscapes and work towards concrete commitments and agreements to move forward with investments, public-private partnerships or other forms of action.
2. Althelia Climate Fund and IUCN NL recognise the urgency to address the lack of stable price signals and have entered into a discussion to explore the possibilities to develop something along the line of a feed-in tariff for REDD+. A first outline on this will be shared soon with interested parties for discussion.

Appendix: list of participants

 

Melissa	Pinfield	Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK
Marco	Albani	Tropical Forest Alliance
Pieter	Terpstra	Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NL
Erik	van Zadelhof	Ministry of Economic Affairs, NL
Pavan	Sukhdev	CORP2020
Sathya	Tripathi	UN Orchid
Miles	Austin	GGGI
Jean	Dominique	Olam International
Augustin	Silvani	Conservation International
Thomas	Sembres	European Forest Institute
Jan Willem	den Besten	IUCN NL
Maxime	Eiselin	IUCN NL
Gerhard	Mulder	IUCN NL
Daryl	Bosu	A Rocha Ghana
Helen	Crowley	Kerin
Christian	del Valle	Althelia
Melissa	Miners	Unilever
Tao	Wang	Green Climate Fund
Jorim	Schraven	Dutch Development Bank
Michael	Bucki	European Commission
Laurent	Micol	ICV Brasil
Jane	Feehan	European Investment Bank
Simon	Badcock	Conservation International
Rebecca	Assare	Nature Conservation Research Center, Ghana
Pieter	Terpstra	Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NL
Andrew	Mitchell	Global Canopy Program
Edit	Kiss	Althelia Climate Fund
Yaw	Kwake	Ghana Forestry Commission
Ronald	Jonkhoff	Desso