Tag: loopholes

The LULUCF negotiations are heading towards the worst possible outcome for forests and are dragging down climate mitigation as a whole.  With each passing day it looks more and more likely a deal will be cut that allows developed countries to increase their annual emissions into the foreseeable future without any real accountability.  Do the national leaders who committed to ‘deep cuts’ in Copenhagen really know what is happening here in Tianjin?  Shouldn’t somebody tell them?

Yesterday Parties had a chance to consider an alternate path.  In an open session, Tuvalu proposed that countries should take responsibility if their emissions increase relative to the first commitment period.  It’s one way to create some basic accountability for changes in forest management. 

But this proposal was roundly rejected by some Annex I Parties with the excuse that it would be too politically difficult to account for these emissions in a fair manner.  The cursory treatment of Tuvalu’s proposal lasted less than an hour, leaving the distinct impression that developed countries would be happy never to discuss it again. 

The quick dismissal of viable accounting options is a travesty in light of the nearly two years wasted on developing a ‘reference levels’ approach that would allow developed countries to increase exploitation of their forests and artificially enhance their weak national targets.

And it gets even worse.  A large proportion of emissions from bioenergy, supposedly a low carbon energy source, will disappear entirely – unaccounted for while trees are harvested under weak forest management rules and counted as zero carbon in power stations.

ECO has learned not to expect much at all from the LULUCF negotiations.  But the citizens of a world increasingly threatened by climate change should reject this blatant abdication of accountability and responsibility, and demand that developed countries live up to their commitments to reduce emissions and protect and enhance forest carbon sinks.

Will the LULUCF roller coaster end in a train wreck? Last week was LULUCF week here in Bonn. It all started with a KP Chair intent on finalizing the LULUCF rules, despite the existence of enormous loopholes.  In particular, the approach to forest management accounting favoured by Annex I Parties would allow developed countries to increase their annual emissions without accounting for it. In Saturday’s contact group, the G77 and China presented a two-part proposal to try to limit the damage of this approach: a review process to allow independent scrutiny of how each developed country calculates its reference level, and the proposal for a cap on credits from forest management. The Group’s proposal includes an expert review that would have the power to make adjustments if the assumptions and methods of a country’s reference level were found to be flawed, if the projection contradicts historical data collected for the first commitment period, or if there are accounting inconsistencies that result in hidden emissions (e.g., not accounting for emissions from bioenergy use). The Group is clearly trying its best to close the loophole, but this effort is severely limited by a group of Annex I Parties who are uninterested in rigorous accountability and actual emission reductions.  Rather than Parties agreeing to an honest accounting framework, the G77 and China are being forced onto the back foot to develop partial fixes to limit the damage. Further evidence of this was provided in the follow-up proposal from Russia that it should have no cap on credits and no obligation to account for increased net emissions until the forest sink is wiped out. These talks are in dire need of some leadership from developed countries. ECO maintains that accounting must be based on comparisons to the long-term historical average before the start of the first commitment period (i.e., 1990-2007), and that the goal of LULUCF must be to reduce net anthropogenic emissions, not let them increase. And lest we forget our natural forest ecosystems, they must be protected! Unless Annex 1 Parties adopt fair reference levels based on historical average emissions, a cap on credits may be needed as a second-best solution for LULUCF rules that are on the verge of becoming even weaker.  But the cap should not be applied to debits; even as every effort is being made to exclude emissions from the accounting, it would be even more perverse to further limit a Party’s obligation to account for emissions by also capping debits. Finally, accounting for Forest Management must be mandatory. After bending over backwards to accommodate the national interests and aversion to real debits by Annex I Parties, voluntary accounting would simply ensure that no good could ever come of this framework.