Forestry, LULUCF and REDD
Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) is an emission sector under the Kyoto Protocol. It covers cropland and grazing land management, land clearing and forest management in developed countries.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries (REDD) is similar but is exclusively for developing countries. It will initially be focused on forests, with the possibility of expansion. There are complex existing rules and practices around LULUCF – some of which Australia is seeking to change – but there is no mechanism and no agreement as yet about how to deal with REDD.
Background
- Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
- Forest degradation is responsible for significant additional emissions.
- The countries where this is occurring are predominately non-Annex 1 countries.
- The Clean Development Mechanism, which credits greenhouse abatement activities in non-Annex 1
- countries, allows afforestation and reforestation, but not avoided deforestation and forest degradation,
- to generate credits for purchase by the Kyoto parties.
- The Coalition of Rainforest Nations wants certified emissions offsets to be created from avoided
- deforestation and forest degradation and made available on the global carbon emissions markets.
- The LULUCF or land sector has always been a contentious and difficult sector for the Kyoto Protocol.
- Most parties agree that the current inconsistent and complex rules must change, and a suite of
- changes is up for consideration by the AWG-KP.
Further resources
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REDD is a 'scam': New report
Friends of the Earth Australia and AidWatch have released a joint report ‘What a Scam – Australia’s REDD Offsets for Copenhagen’, examining the Australian and Indonesian Governments’ program to create carbon ‘offsets’ from reduced deforestation. The report is endorsed by WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia, Indonesia’s largest environment organisation) and Serikat Petani Indonesia (Indonesian Peasants Union). Their research outcomes point out how the Australian REDD offset model breaches Australia’s international obligations, and is a scam': it is not aimed at reducing deforestation, but at creating a source of cheap credits for increased emissions in Australia. The key findings of the Report include: the Australia-Indonesia REDD proposal favours the complete marketisation of forest credits to help Australia offset its responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; the Australian agreement with Indonesia does not guarantee indigenous rights, and as such breaches the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people; the Australian Government has siphoned off $200 million in overseas aid for its REDD campaign, breaching UN requirements that climate aid be additional to development assistance; and that the Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) permits all Australian emissions to be offset overseas, potentially in REDD schemes, breaching the UN requirement that offsets can only supplement domestic emissions reductions. Download the report at: http://www.sydney.foe.org.au/sites/files/foesydney/What%20A%20Scam%20-%20Australia%27s%20REDD%20offsets%20for%20Copenhagen.pdf
- CANA summary sheet on LULUCF and REDD
REDD Policy Approaches Briefing Paper (from German Development Insitute)
