Deforestation

United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen ended without a clear directive to save the world's forests, an issue seen as critical for averting dangerous climate change.

An agreement on REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries, was expected to be completed last week as the talks wrapped up.

But the final "Copenhagen Accord" only recognized the importance of ending deforestation; it gave no specifics on what REDD will look like or what it will include.

The international climate talks have repeatedly bogged down in disputes over transparency and verification, but on one issue, technology is offering a solution.

New forest monitoring technology from tech giants Google and Cisco is starting to come online, allowing detailed tracking of land-use changes, particularly deforestation. The technology combines satellite images, maps and current and historical data for analysis. One system is being designed as a "planetary skin" with a network of sensors across the region and scientists on the ground to raise alerts in time to take action.

The almost real-time monitoring these systems offer may be what world leaders need to lock down a deal on a key component of an international climate treaty: REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

Reporting from Copenhagen

A much-touted UN forestry scheme aimed at ending deforestation and radically slowing global warming is close to getting approval at the 193-nation UN climate talks, but without any long-term financial commitments to pay for it.

Without money guaranteed from wealthy states, poor nations won't accept targets to end forest loss, making the plan hot air, forest advocates are warning.

Reporting from Copenhagen

A deal is on the table at UN climate talks that would require poor nations to halt deforestation completely by 2030 on the condition that wealthy nations fork over $22 billion to $37 billion to jump start the plan, according to new text leaked today in Copenhagen.

"There's money in there for the first time," Peg Putt of the Wilderness Society told SolveClimate in an interview. That alone is "quite significant," she said.

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Reporting from Copenhagen

UN climate talks on ending deforestation hit a new low on Saturday after a leaked document revealed that immediate targets to halt forest loss had been cut out of a draft agreement.

Poorer forested countries had been willing to accept deforestation targets, but only with financial assistance. They wanted rich countries to commit to providing billions of dollars for the effort before they agreed to bind themselves to any goals.

Currently, there are no dollar commitments on the table.

Reporting from Copenhagen

UN negotiators from poor nations are threatening to abandon targets on curbing deforestation if there is no commitment from the rich to pay for a forestry scheme.

"To just have a target without a financial commitment, developing countries see as a trap," Kevin Conrad, special envoy and ambassador for environment and climate change for Papua New Guinea, told SolveClimate at the international climate negotiations under way in Copenhagen.

"It's not that we're afraid of the target," he said, "it's that we're afraid of being left high and dry."

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The world may be close to clinching a deal to pay poor nations to preserve their forests, but the current plan lacks any monitoring to ensure billions of dollars are not lost to corruption, a new study released by the UK-based campaign group Global Witness warns.

If the scheme is adopted with no rules to ward off carbon crime, then it "will fail," said Rosalind Reeve, Global Witness forest campaign manager.

The forest text is expected to be finalized by the end of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summit in Copenhagen on Dec. 18. The chances of monitoring provisions getting in are 50:50, Reeve told SolveClimate in an interview.

By Daniel Kessler

On Nov. 16, two Greenpeace activists from Germany and Italy and two members of the press from India and Italy, all of whom were traveling on valid business and journalist visas, were picked up and detained by Indonesian police.

They were on their way to meet the villagers of Teluk Meranti, who have been supporting Greenpeace in its efforts to highlight rainforest and peatland destruction in the Kampar Peninsula — ground zero for climate change. The police also took into custody an activist from Belgium who had been working at our Climate Defenders Camp there.

Despite the validity of their travel documents and the absence of any wrongdoing, two of the activists and both journalists are now being deported by immigration authorities on questionable and seemingly contrived grounds, even though no formal deportation permits have been issued.

Just a few days before, immigration authorities deported 11 other international Greenpeace activists who participated in a non-violent direct action in an area where Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd., or APRIL, one of Indonesia's largest pulp and paper companies, is clearing rainforest and draining peatland on the peninsula.

Reporting from Barcelona, Spain

Hopes for a strong global deal that would pay poor nations to stop deforestation hit a new low on Friday after negotiators at the climate talks in Barcelona released a draft proposal that lacks teeth.

The new text on reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, called REDD, contains no international rules to enforce forest protection in countries that would get billions of dollars to implement REDD.

Most of these nations have weak legal enforcement of their own.

That makes the agreement "worth no more than the paper it is written on," said Rosalind Reeve, of London-based Global Witness. "The text, as it stands, reflects a strong push to receive REDD funds with no oversight."

"In the words of Abraham Lincoln, a good law without law enforcement is just good advice, " Davyth Stewart, an attorney for Global Witness, told SolveClimate.

Two themes are emerging from the second Governors’ Global Climate Summit in California: "Copenhagen, can you hear us now?" and "Don’t leave out the forests this time".

This week’s summit seems intent on building on the success of last year’s international agreement on forest protection, starting with a push from the host state.

First, Sierra Pacific Industries, the largest private forest owner in California, announced a major agreement Wednesday to create the nation’s largest carbon sequestration project, expected to cover 60,000 acres and sequester 1.5 million tons of CO2, equivalent to taking some 300,000 cars off the road for a year.