This blog was authored by Julia Ilhardt, former High Meadows Fellow, Global Climate Cooperation.
At the end of last year, 196 nations agreed to the historic Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes the goal to protect 30% of land and sea area by 2030. Still, nature is woefully underfinanced, with investments in nature-based solutions needing to double to USD 384 billion per year by 2025, according to UNEP.
EDF’s delegation to the climate talks taking place in Bonn, Germany from June 5 to June 15 give us some insights into the issues they’re following.
Flags on clear sky. Getty.
Next week, climate negotiators will convene in Bonn, Germany for a two-week negotiation session that will serve as an important marker on the road to the COP28 climate talks in Dubai this November. The outcome of the talks, known as SB58, will set the stage for the negotiations at COP28, giving us an indication of what needs to happen in the months leading up to those pivotal talks.
Every year the climate negotiations become more urgent as we draw closer to the timelines for meeting the Paris Agreement goals. The task is even more challenging when considering the other crises the world faces, like economic disruption, energy insecurity and food scarcity. We need effective solutions that can solve for these multiple challenges simultaneously. The talks in Bonn are an important opportunity to gauge progress and push forward key action points that address these various challenges, in the lead up to COP28, and beyond.
EDF’s delegation to the Bonn climate talks are closely monitoring various important issues inside and around the negotiations. These include the Global Stocktake process, food, fisheries and ocean issues, and efforts to expand high-integrity carbon market cooperation.
This post was co-authored by Julia Paltseva, Senior Analyst at EDF, and Tuntiak Katan from the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA). For more resources on high forest, low deforestation (HFLD) crediting, visit edf.org/hfld. This post has also been translated into Spanish and French (leer en español, lire en français).
Tuntiak Katan of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). Photo by Leslie Von Pless, EDF
Forests are an essential part of the climate change solution, and their effective conservation requires the empowerment of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, or IPLCs. Around the world, IPLCs have stewarded forests for generations. However, in the face of growing economic pressures to cut forests down, current incentives designed to keep forests standing are largely inaccessible to communities living in areas of historically low forest loss, known as high forest, low deforestation regions, or HFLD.
An effective and equitable global REDD+ incentive-system for reducing deforestation should reward all relevant jurisdictions and actors, including both historical emitters and historical protectors of carbon stock, like IPLCs. We must eliminate forest loss in areas where it is already occurring. At the same time, we must also avoid future increases in deforestation in areas of historically low forest loss – HFLD regions.
Guardians of the forest
Indigenous Peoples and local communities are some of the best forest protectors, especially when equipped with strong tenure and land rights. In Mesoamerica, IPLCs steward half of forested areas. In the Amazon, Indigenous Peoples manage more than 30% of the rainforest, and satellite imagery shows deforestation rates in Indigenous territories are roughly half of what they are in similar surrounding lands. IPLCs typically practice sustainable forest management, through agroforestry and low-impact agriculture, allowing them to both provide for their needs and effectively conserve the forests.
Despite a successful track record of maintaining intact forests, forest communities have directly received less than one percent of international government aid for climate change mitigation and adaptation over the last decade.
Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by Leslie Von Pless/EDF
High-quality tropical forest carbon credits are essential to combatting climate change, advancing community-led development and safeguarding biodiversity.
This post was written by Mark Moroge, Vice President, Natural Climate Solutions and Breanna Lujan, Senior Manager, Natural Climate Solutions. This is an exerpt of a post published in EDF+Business. Read the full post here.
If you’re a company, navigating the tropical forest carbon credit marketplace can be daunting, particularly in a complex media landscape.
How should you do it?
First, don’t miss the forest for the trees. We must halt and reverse tropical deforestation by 2030 to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. We need to use all the tools in our toolbox.
Private sector finance is key to tackling deforestation at the pace and scale the world needs. As a company, you should decarbonize your own operations as quickly as possible. Alongside this, purchase high-quality tropical forest carbon credits. Such credits are an essential means to stabilize our climate and safeguard biodiversity. Revenues can also improve the lives and livelihoods of some of the world’s most vulnerable forest peoples, including Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who’ve long struggled for just recognition of their conservation efforts.
Second, do your due diligence – both of your tropical forest carbon credit purchases, and of the information you consume about the tropical forest carbon marketplace. Both matter, and both support the evolution of forest carbon markets towards ever increasing integrity and quality. Read the full post here.
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva meets with Indigenous leaders at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on November 17, 2022. Photo by COICA Communications.
“Brazil is back,” said President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in his Nov. 16 address to COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt. But it’s a Brazil far more attuned to climate change, Amazon deforestation and Indigenous peoples’ rights than the one Lula assumed responsibility for when he first became president in 2003.
During his speech, Lula promised zero deforestation in Brazil by 2030, a first-ever Ministry for Indigenous Peoples, and crackdowns on the environmental crime that has run rampant under the Jair Bolsonaro government. He also talked about a return to the “civilizing values” championed by his former Environment Minister and now congresswoman-elect, Marina Silva.
These announcements were all met with great enthusiasm by Lula’s audience in Sharm El-Sheikh, where climate negotiators, civil society, businesses and others with a stake in the climate fight convened over the last two weeks.
The prospect of Brazil’s return to leadership in the international climate negotiations – and the promise of effective action to combat climate change – are both very important developments in the climate movement. Read More
Slogan at COP27. Source: Flickr
With COP27 now in full gear, we have plenty to be excited about when it comes to forest conservation. Last year’s climate convening in Glasgow put nature at the center of the climate agenda. We celebrated the declaration signed by more than 100 countries in Glasgow to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. The funding promises of almost $20 billion toward forest conservation were equally groundbreaking.
Despite those milestones, in the year since COP26 , the deforestation crisis has actually worsened . Deforestation in the Amazon, for example, increased by 48% over 2021. Yet there is hope.
Countries and companies are realizing the importance of conserving rainforests at scale. Commitments to end deforestation, along with promises to fund and compensate forest conservation, are growing. We’re also seeing more robust standards for emissions reductions credits from natural climate solutions, including forests.
This all bodes well, and COP27 is an opportunity to keep the momentum going on ending deforestation. So, what can we expect in Sharm El-Sheikh when it comes to conserving forests? Here’s a quick overview of the first three days’ action on forests, why they’re important, and what we expect to see over the rest of the conference. Read More
