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To plant or to conserve

Photos by: Piia Koponen
To date only one methodology of A/R CDM project activities has been approved by the Executive Board. Having become tired of observing the processes and waiting for the outcomes of planting forests through afforestation (A) and reforestation (R) under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Parties are now looking forward to seeing the new regime of climate protection through conservation activities in the existing forests. Carbon sequestration by sinks projects turns out to be extremely slow and probably yielding small Certified Emission Reduction (CER), while emissions from deforestation continue to be fast in rate and large in size. Parties probably realized that excluding deforestation (D) in the CDM was a mistake since A/R CDM projects do not work as well as expected.

The process was started at the eleventh session of the Conference of Parties (COP11) in Montreal last December. So far the willingness of forest-rich developing countries to participate has been very promising. The two-year process is expected to culminate in the COP13 in 2007 when the recommendation on reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries will be made.

The first step of the process ended on 31 March 2006, when Parties were expected to submit their views focusing on relevant scientific, technical and methodological issues, and the exchange of relevant information and experiences, including policy approaches and positive incentives. As of mid-April 2006 there were 16 submissions from accredited observers. Debates are likely gearing up towards the workshop to be organized by the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) before its 25th session in conjunction with COP12 by the end of 2006.

In most developing countries, forest conversions are usually driven by the market price of timber. Attractive incentives following conversions are usually associated with the development of large scale plantations of pulpwood, oil-palm, or soybean. Unless the CER price for emission reduction from deforestation is competitive it is hard to say how successful the new climate protection regime will be.