Understanding REDD

On October 30, panelists Tia Nelson, Nigel Purvis, and Steve Schwartzman discussed the new market mechanism, REDD -- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation -- that aims to allow residents of tropical forest properties to earn more money from standing forests than from their removal. Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of all carbon emissions into the atmosphere, more than the combined emissions of every car, truck, ship, plane and train on the planet. The panelists were introduced by Roger Stone, guest editor for the Washington Monthly's Special Report in their July/August issue, "A Clear Cut Crisis." The question and answer period was moderated by Paul Glastris, editor in chief of the Washington Monthly.

The REDD concept is part of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, which would allow U.S. companies to offset the carbon they emit by paying tropical countries and their citizens not to cut down their rainforests. A market-based system that includes REDD will also be on the agenda at the UN-sponsored talks in Copenhagen this December, where representatives hope to hash out a new climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. 

Steve Schwartzman, Anthropologist and Director of Tropical Forest Policy and Co-Director of the International Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, discussed how climate change effects local communities and the emerging role of REDD as an important component of the post-Kyoto global climate change regime. Schwartzman covered the state of play international negotiations, and the science background to creating large scale incentives for reducing deforestation and forest degradation through an international climates treaty. He also discussed Brazil as the major laboratory for this issue on the ground today.

Tia Nelson, Co-Chair of the Task Force on Global Warming for Governor Doyle of Wisconsin, spoke of her recent work at the Task Force and its global implications. Nelson discussed the bill currently being drafted for Wisconsin: its strong emissions reduction target, endorsement of a federal cap and trade program, aggressive conservation and efficiency measures, and aggressive renewable portfolio standard. Nelson is currently assisting in the formation a new coalition of state governors in the US, Indonesia, and the Brazilian Amazon. Internationally as well as domestically in coal-dependent areas, Nelson said, transition strategies to help mitigate costs are needed.

Lastly, Nigel Purvis, President of Climate Advisers and Executive Director of the new, bipartisan and multi-disciplinary private commission on climate change and tropical forests, stressed the importance of the United States playing a leading role in helping limit deforestation in the developing world. He detailed the Commission's findings and recommendations that if adopted will, they believe, allow developing countries to reduce deforestation in half by 2020 and to achieve zero net deforestation globally by 2030. These are ambitious goals, Pervis said, but they are achievable in the current political environment with bipartisan cooperation.