Environment Essay: Mitigation Measures

Environment Essay Mitigation MeasuresChapter 3 Reducing Emissions From dis timbreation Forest Degradation (REDD)3.1 Genesis and emergence of REDDThe current outside(a) clime diversify framework is a long way from delivering the firings reductions required for a orbicular stabilisation target necessary to give the world a realistic chance of limiting spheric warming to 2c equivalent to atmospheric CO2e at 445-490ppm or misfortunateer. Further strong and imperative concerted international lay oution volition be needed from both unquestionable and exploitation countries to go out this goal across exclusively domains attach energy efficiency Reduce demand for expellings intensive goods and services deal to lower atomic number 6 technologies for transport and industrial sectors Action on non-energy arcs much(prenominal) as de woodsation.Different mitigation measures are required for different sectors as menti angiotensin-converting enzymed above with emphasizing mor e on sets sector which is the main stretch of this paper. It is estimated that in the absence of some(prenominal) mitigation efforts, spark from the lumber sector alone lead increase atmospheric coulomb received to around 30ppm by 2100, at which the current atmospheric CO2e levels stand at 433ppm agree to the analysis of Eliasch reexamine (2008). Thus there is certainly urgency for forests to be a central part of either worldwide humor assortment deal by placing it in the top priority as it is increasingly accepted that mitigation of climate change will non be achieved without the inclusion of forests fully into the framework in post 2012. Part of the exposition for this is that forests offer the greatest single opportunity in tackling climate change and to melt off speed of light outpourings spryly and cost- stiffly as opposed to developing and inventing expensively new technological infrastructure and when compared with abatement in other sectors. This is s ubstantiate by reports from Stern Review (2007) and IPCC AR4 (2007) in which deforestation accounts for nearly a fifth of global vitamin C emissions (18-25%), surprisingly a very satisfying and greater share second only to energy.Forests including woodlands play many roles in climate change mitigation through degree centigrade sequestration, emission reductions, and one C substitution. It has been estimated that 80% of the total emissions savings hold under the current communications protocol of the convention would be wiped out if the current forest loss in forested developing countries such as Brazil and Indonesia to continue until 2012 (Stern, 2008). presumptuousness this significant rate of forest loss worldwide, thus decrease emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) would undeniably make a major donation to see an emission stabilisation target by complementing measures such as afforestation, reforestation and restoration. These measures would increas e global hundred stocks by sequestering and storing atmospheric cytosine when new forests are planted and grow. Additionally, natural forests maintain carbon stocks and conveyancings, and act as a carbon sink besides other co-benefits including biodiversity conservation, eco body services, privation alleviation and livelihoods. The increased employ of wood-based biofuels and wood products with bioenergy crops plantation are options for carbon substitution.Currently developing countries redeem no obligations under UNFCCC to mitigate GHG emissions although virtually cases of deforestation are originating from tropic developing countries which accounts for over 1Gt per year of emission entrusting from deforestation in the tropics (Stern, 2007). However, developing countries can contribute to global emission reductions by hosting projects under the CDM which include both afforestation and reforestation projects. Measures on REDD were initially excluded from the land use, land u se change and forestry sector (LULUCF which is immediately referred to as agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) within the IPCC Guidelines for National nursery Gas Inventories as of 2006 for technical consistency) within the UNFCCCs CDM during CoP7 in Marrakesh. The accounting on REDD exclusion was due of the possibility that if incentives were provided for individual projects, the result would be displacement of deforestation activity elsewhere within a country, with fiddling or no net gain.Discussions for the inclusion of REDD was initiated at CoP11/MoP1 in Montreal during of late 2005, which marked the set-back step for entry into force of the Kyoto communications protocol on 16 February 2005. However, during the CoP13/MoP3 which was convened in Bali in celestial latitude 2007, agreed to what is known as the Bali Roadmap. The main advances in the roadmap are the commitments to be negotiated includingemphasising the development of appropriate constitution approach es and positive incentives that would lead to REDD and the role of forest conservation in the carbon handicraft regime, sustainable forest management and the forest carbon stock enhancementFinancing the adaptation needs of developing countries andFunding the transfer of low-carbon technologies to developing nations.The inclusion of REDD in the roadmap is seen as a way to send for environmental destruction by assigning value to intact forest ecosystems including peatlands and swamps. REDD has the potential to shift the balance of underlying economic market forces that soon in favour of deforestation, by alloting incentives and ultimately payments for the ecosystem services provided by forests in the tropical regions. REDD assign offer the opportunity to utilise depoting from developed countries to deoxidise deforestation in developing countries despite question on how to come back forest conservation for the following approaches to pay countriesfor reducing deforestation rela tive to a service line of past deforestation rates, and/or future(a) projections of deforestationaccording to a fixed formula based on forest area and/or the carbon stock represented.In general, forest destruction takes place because forest countries can make more bills by using the land for intensive agricultural activities, as they enamor the value of standing natural timber, then annual harvests of agricultural start such as beef, palm oil and soya beans (Tickell, 2008). Thus reward payments would therefore have to be sufficient to nourish forests from competing land uses and he suggested that countries would be rewarded based on maintaining agreed areasfor pure conservation, with no ontogenesis save that of indigenous or long-established peoplesfor limited, sustainable exploitation focussed on non-timber productsfor more intensive exploitation, including for timber but subject to certification for get managementof plantation, but including measures to protect soils, water and biodiversityof degraded and destroyed forest undergoing restoration and rehabilitation to one of the above categories.The deadline for reaching an agreement on the specifics of an international REDD chemical mechanism, at least as regards to it universe implemented in the short and medium term, is the CoP15 which will be held in Copenhagen in declination 2009. REDD take over faces many challenges especially in implementation as there are particular problems with regards to controlling these emissions owing totheir dispersed nature, making them onerous to control, and hard or indeed impossible to measure with accuracy.The difficulty of distinguishing with evidence between emissions that are of natural origin, and those that are due to deliberate military man interventionsIssues of national sovereignty in which some forest rich developing countries do not take kindly to other countries telling them what they whitethorn and may not do with their forests.These three factors make it inconceivable that these emissions should be controlled at source in the same way as emissions from other sources. There are to a fault many problems with the approach currently being developed under the framework to protect forests, which is to incorporate REDD within the carbon trading regime.While much of the deforestation under consideration is the result of legal land-use change and logging, there is also a significant counterweight that is illegal. If avoided deforestation is to become a credible element of an international system for controlling nursery shoot a line emissions, forest areas will have to be managed over the very long term and be subject to effective legal enforcement. It is not yet clear whether the necessary investment in standing forests will come from a public fund or private markets, but, if the latter is the case, it is likely that carbon captured in countries with effective forest law enforcement will be valued more highly than in those with poo r sectoral governance.3.2 Expectation for global climate deal at CoP15 duologue on commitments for the post 2012 period are on-going since CoP13/MoP3 in Bali in December 2007.Forest carbon emissions together with emissions from other sources are a global negative externality. The cost of each unit released into the atmosphere is not borne by the emitter. Instead the costs are imposed on the international fellowship as a whole in the form of exposure to the carbon toxification and damaging effects of climate change.There is currently no omnibus(prenominal) system that rewards REDD efforts although it brings global benefits. Thus it is reasonable that any international climate change framework should internalise the emissions from forests in order to incentivise forest nations to protect and conserved their natural standing forest from deforestation and degradation. consort to the Eliasch Review (2009), there are likely three criteria that a successful international climate change f ramework should affectEffectiveness to deliver the emission reductions at required scale by tackling three major challenges, that is, leakage, additional and permanence.Issues range from permanence (whether a county can ensure that forest carbon savings are permanent) to leakage (what happens when carbon conservation in one area drives deforestation in another?) to baseline data fundamental law (how does one measure historic deforestation to establish a baseline for calculating reduction?).Efficiency to minimise the overall cost of achieving the emissions reductions and equitable to ensure that the benefits of international action are distributed fairly.questions over land rights (will REDD stir up a land rush by industrial agriculture giants and forestry firms?) as well as how local communities will benefitThere is also ongoing squabbling between a coalition of forest nations and Brazil, which sees REDD as an strive to limit its economic development of the Amazon rainforest. So me forest-rich countries that have low deforestation rates have expressed concern they will be left out of the process since their forests are not under immediate threat.3.3 Sources of fundingDespite various concerns mentioned above, it appears likely the REDD initiatives will move forward. According to ITTO( ), funds are starting to flow to tropical countries via international REDD initiatives and self-imposed carbon offset projects. The potential to channel resources to tropical countries under any successor to the UNFCCCs Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, will have to be amend significantly over present arrangements in order to have any impact. The level of assistance provided to tropical forests through the existing CDM has so furthermost been a bitter disappointment to many. The negative experience of the CDM in the relatively straight forward areas in which it has operated to date inspires little confidence in its ability to encompass the far trickier area of emission s from deforestation.Last week nightclub industrialized governments announced plans to put US$165 million (114 million) toward the cosmos Banks newly created Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, a scheme that will offer tropical countries carbon offset credits to preserve forests. The U.S. did not pledge any funds but some 30 tropical countries in Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific stood to benefit from what the World Bank called the first financial mechanism to pay countries for saving their tropical forests. In the timbre of the progress on REDD, Governors from the Brazilian state of Amazonas and the Indonesian provinces of Aceh, Papua and West Papua agreed to a moratorium on logging until the carbon values of their forest lands is assessed.3.4 Linking to carbon marketsKyoto includes defined flexible mechanisms such as Emissions Trading, the Clean Development chemical mechanism and Joint Implementation to allow university extension I economies to meet their GHG emission limitations by purchasing GHG emission reductions credits from elsewhere, through financial exchanges, projects that constrain emissions in non-annex I economies, from other annex I countries, or from annex I countries with excess allowances. In practice this means that non-annex I economies have no GHG emission restrictions, but have financial incentives to develop GHG emission reduction projects to receive carbon credits that can then be sold to annex I buyers, encouraging sustainable development. 4In addition, the flexible mechanisms allow annex I nations with efficient, low GHG-emitting industries, and high prevailing environmental standards to leverage carbon credits on the world market instead of reducing greenhouse liquid emissions house servantally. Annex I entities typically will extremity to acquire carbon credits as cheaply as possible, tour non-annex I entities want to maximize the value of carbon credits generated from their domestic Greenhouse Gas Projects.While t here is an urgent need to reduce emissions from deforestation, there are considerable dangers in including forests within the carbon trading regimes. This is because GHG emissions need to be cut both from forest destruction and from fossil fuels, that is not to trade the one off against the other. By putting carbon credits from REDD into the Kyoto Protocols carbon trading regime, the Annex 1 parties will be able to continue to pollute at will provided they offset their pollution by REDD elsewhere.Developing countries are not pass judgment to de-carbonize their economy unless developed countries supply enough funding and technology. Setting no immediate restrictions under the UNFCCC serves three purposesit avoids restrictions on their development, because emissions are strongly associate to industrial capacity,they can sell emissions credits to nations whose operators have difficulty meeting their emissions targets,they get money and technologies for low-carbon investments from th e developed countries in Annex II.Developing countries may volunteer to become Annex I countries when they are sufficiently developed. universal but differentiated responsibilityThe United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to a set of a putting surface but differentiated responsibilities. The parties agreed thatthe largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse floates originated in developed countriesper capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively lowBrunei do have a high per capita emissionthe share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet social and development needs.China, India, and other developing countries were not included in any numerical limitation of the Kyoto Protocol, because they were not main contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions in the pre-treaty industrialization period. China has since become the largest greenhouse gas emitter.However, til now without responsib ility under the Kyoto target, developing countries were to share the common responsibility of all countries to reduce emissions.The protocol defines a mechanism of shape as a monitoring compliance with the commitments and penalties for non-complianceThe five principal concepts of the Kyoto Protocol arecommitments to reduce greenhouse gases that are legally binding for annex I countries, as well as general commitments for all member countriesimplementation to meet the Protocol objectives, to prepare policies and measures which reduce greenhouse gases increasing absorption of these gases and use all mechanisms available, such as joint implementation, clean development mechanism and emissions trading being rewarded with credits which allow more greenhouse gas emissions at homeminimizing impacts on developing countries by establishing an adaptation fund for climate changeaccounting, reporting and review to ensure the integrity of the Protocolcompliance by establishing a compliance comm ittee to enforce compliance with the commitments under the Protocol.3.4 Institutional aspect for Designated National Authority (DNA)Among the annex I signatories, all nations have established Designated National politics to manage their greenhouse gas portfolios countries including Japan, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and others are actively promoting government carbon funds, supporting two-sided carbon funds intent on purchasing carbon credits from non-annex I countries, and are working closely with their major utility, energy, oil and gas and chemicals conglomerates to acquire greenhouse gas certificates as cheaply as possible. virtually all of the non-annex I countries have also established Designated National Authorities to manage the Kyoto process, specifically the CDM process that determines which GHG Projects they wish to propose for accreditation by the CDM decision maker Board.