Policy Brief: Climate change negotiations make incremental progress on REDD in Bonn

To the casual observer passing through the halls of the Hotel Maritim in Bonn last week, it would not have been immediately apparent that the 3,000 or so delegates gathered there were negotiating an historic and monumental deal on climate change. After a week of agenda delays and politicking, Parties began to show some signs of progress on the crucial issue of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

The 34th meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) represents the halfway point in this years climate change negotations that will culminate in the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17) in Durban in December. As developing countries move forward on the design and implementation of their national REDD strategies, it was imperative that Parties make progress in Bonn on outstanding methodological and financial issues. Late in the second week negotiators finally agreed on a small but not insignificant step forward on how to progress with the programme of work that was agreed in Cancun.

The Cancun hangover
At COP 16 in Cancun, Parties - with the exception of Bolivia - came together in the final hours of negotiations to agree on an historic decision on REDD.  Encoded within the Cancun Agreements are a few pages of legalese that lay out a framework for REDD as well as an ambitious work programme leading up to COP 17 to Durban. The SBSTA work programme has four key themes for consideration by COP 17, namely:

• Develop guidance relating to systems for providing information on how safeguards are addressed and respected
• Develop modalities relating to forest reference levels and forest reference emission levels
• Develop modalities relating to forest monitoring systems
• Develop guidance on modalities for measuring, reporting and verifying emissions

In Bangkok, however, at the first meeting to be held this year under the Climate Change Convention, Parties spent the entire week quibbling over the agenda. At first it looked as though the Bonn talks would go the same way as a few vocal countries including Bolivia and Saudi Arabia blocked progress.  Saudi Arabia - not surprisingly – are still pushing for their economic losses due to climate change to be compensated for as we move into a greener, oil-free world. Bolivia’s position, however, is more complex. They have requested all discussion of payments for REDD struck from the agenda, although Bolivia itself is a recipient of nearly USD 5 million through the UN-REDD programme.

Draft conclusions agreed on REDD
Late in the first week, Parties began to discuss the methodological issues laid out in the SBSTA work programme. The two key themes within the negotiations were a) whether or not the programme of work was realistic and b) what would be needed for Parties to reach a decision by Durban, given the slow pace of discussions thus far. 

At the end of the second week, after a long night of discussions that saw some compromises to an earlier version of the text, Parties agreed to the Draft conclusions proposed by the chair. These lay out both a process between now and Durban and reconfirm the desire to complete the agreed elements of the SBSTA work programme by the end of the year.

Parties agree ‘more than just a process’
The draft conclusions contain two basic elements. Firstly, the SBSTA has invited Parties and accredited observers to submit their views on the SBSTA work programme by 19th September 2011. To facilitate future discussions and to make this ‘more than just a process decision’ as Jim Penman from the EU stated - these submissions should follow some general guidelines outlined in the Annex to the draft conclusions. The guidelines refer to three items within the SBSTA work programme - safeguards, reference levels and MRV - and include suggestions on what to include for each e.g. the potential barriers for safeguards, the scope of reference levels and process for reporting MRV. In doing so Parties might therefore be able to have a common framework for negotiations during the next meeting.

SBSTA has also requested for the secretariat to organise, subject to the availability of funds, a series of technical expert meetings, including one before Durban. The good news is that - during the closing plenary - the Australian delegation announced that they would be able to commit AUS$ 500,000 to this first workshop. Whilst it is still unknown where this workshop will be held it is likely be in the environs of an intersessional meeting between now and Durban.

REDD finance remains in a holding pattern under the climate talks
Although Parties met on two separate occasions under the Ad Hoc Working Group on long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA), the issue of financing for REDD remains on hold until the broader discussions on financing are resolved.  Whilst a range of financing options exist for REDD - ranging from greening commodities to payments for ecosystem services - the discussions on REDD finance continue to focus on the two opposing options of markets and funds. Some progress was made, however, during the REDD+ Partnership meeting to broach the issue of financing for forests more broadly as Parties met during the final weekend of negotiations in a workshop on REDD finance.  The REDD+ partnership has gone from strength to strength under the joint leadership of France and Brazil with increased participation and engagement of civil society organisation; a trend that will hopefully continue under the next co-chairs - Germany and Guyana - who will be leading the REDD+ parthership through Durban.

The road to Durban
It seems that there have been many roads from Bali to Durban (first to Copenhagen, then to Cancun and now to Durban). One question we might ask ourselves is what can we expect from COP 17 in Durban and when is this process likely to conclude? There are two alternatives to this question.

Parties can come together in Durban in a broad and encompassing agreement on the four elements outlined in the SBSTA work programme (safeguards, reference levels, MRV and forest monitoring). This will provide a much needed signal to the multitude of bottom up initiatives that are currently being designed or implemented in developing countries on how to construct a national REDD strategy. To do so though will require many of the political issues that remain on the fringes of the REDD discussions including Bolivia and Saudi Arabia’s objections within the political process to be resolved. Another intersessional meeting is planned between now and COP 17. This two-week meeting – to be held between the 26th September and 7th October – will need to make significant progress on all areas of the negotiations if we are to have a meaningful outcome in Durban and careful preparation will be needed to ensure that this meeting is not held hostage to entrenched political idealism.

The alternative: that this process limps on into 2012 and beyond will certainly do nothing for international stakeholder’s faith in the UNFCCC process nor for the safety of the world’s remaining tropical forests.