Hello ClearSky friends and climate change concerned citizens,

I’m still in Cancun and feeling very inspired by the action from 3:30AM this morning. Quite honestly, this is a truly impressive feat of diplomacy by the Mexicans. This is a big win for REDD, CCS, and a new Green Fund (World Bank is interim trustee). All major players are happy (with the exception of a small block headed by Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela).

Specific elements of the Cancún Agreements include:

• Industrialized country targets are officially recognized under the multilateral process and these countries are to develop low-carbon development plans and strategies and assess how best to meet them, including through market mechanisms, and to report their inventories annually.
• Developing country actions to reduce emissions are officially recognized under the multilateral process. A registry is to be set up to record and match developing country mitigation actions to finance and technology support from by industrialized countries. Developing countries are to publish progress reports every two years.
• Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol agree to continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty.
• The Kyoto Protocols Clean Development Mechanisms has been strengthened to drive more major investments and technology into environmentally sound and sustainable emission reduction projects in the developing world.
• Parties launched a set of initiatives and institutions to protect the vulnerable from climate change and to deploy the money and technology that developing countries need to plan and build their own sustainable futures.
• A total of $30 billion in fast start finance from industrialized countries to support climate action in the developing world up to 2012 and the intention to raise $100 billion in long-term funds by 2020 are included in the decisions.
• In the field of climate finance, a process to design a Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries, is established.
• A new Cancun Adaptation Framework is established to allow better planning and implementation of adaptation projects in developing countries through increased financial and technical support, including a clear process for continuing work on loss and damage.
• Governments agree to boost action to curb emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries with technological and financial support.
• Parties have established a technology mechanism with a Technology Executive Committee and Climate Technology Centre and Network to increase technology cooperation to support action on adaptation and mitigation.

With renewed hope I begin to think that we are moving slowly forward.  The T-shirt from the youth delegation of the Solomon Islands claiming “You have been negotiating about this for longer than I have been alive.  You can’t tell me you need more time.” Somehow seems less of an indictment this morning.  Let’s see where we go from here.

Excited and hopeful,

Keegan

The heavy interest in REDD+ projects is palpable here in Cancun.  What is not so evident is that the compliance markets are going to be ready to move the REDD+ agenda forward.  Even if an agreement comes out of this COP, it will effectively be authorizing the technical working groups to begin work on the REDD+ protocols and methodologies for national level REDD.  I repeat, to BEGIN work.  That leaves the non-UN markets to lead the way and pioneer the path forward for REDD+.

Timed to coincide with the COP meetings, the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), has approved two distinct methodologies for use in the market, and the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) of California has formally begun the process to include REDD+ from the States of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo in Mexico.  So the voluntary carbon market is releasing REDD+ project methodologies for use around the world, and CAR is beginning to formally push sub-national action for the California compliance cap and trade market.  The development of these two tracks is vitally important for REDD+.  It formally opens a path to market for actions that have been contemplated, or are currently being worked on, in the field to access the market, NOW.  It also demonstrates the interest of the marketplace for REDD+ credits – and that the world has moved on.

There is a bit of a feeling like the UN process is already behind the Voluntary Market and the regional compliance carbon markets with respect to REDD+.  This may not be true forever, but there is certainly a window for the next few years when the voluntary market and the CAR market will dominate the action on the ground.  I hope that the UNFCCC process will embrace the work done in those markets and learn from them for the CDM – and not decide to reinvent the wheel. 

In the short term, I look forward to implementing some REDD+ projects – under the newly validated VCS methodologies or in Mexico under CAR!

Saludos a todos,

Keegan

Dec. 9^th, 2010

As the Cancun Climate Meetings enter the final stretch there is cause to be cautiously optimistic.  There appears to be relative progress on a number of issues: REDD+, Adaptation, Technology Transfer, Capacity Building and parts of the Financing.  The newly proposed Adaptation financing mechanism is not defined at all, and issues relating to Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) remain very contentious.  Overall, the question of having a market mechanism that uses offsets from developing countries is agreed upon, with significant exceptions from a few countries.

When I ask delegates “what looks good?”, they unanimously answer REDD+ seems to be looking good!  That is Great News!  But it is also a result of the significant work done to get agreement on REDD+ prior to everyone arriving in Cancun.  That said, Bolivia and a few other countries are very opposed to a market mechanism for REDD+, and may have some influence on the final nature of the agreement and the language of the agreement. 

I attended a high profile session last night where the message of REDD+ as a mainstream idea was evident.  The event, put on by the Avoided Deforestation Partners, included Presidents and Prime Ministers of some countries, as well as Presidents and CEOs of the World Bank, big conservation organizations and Wal- Mart.  The idea that REDD+ would be promoted publicly by the president of the World Bank, The President of Wal Mart and Jane Goodall is a snapshot of the broad consensus forming around REDD+ at this meeting, and globally.  There were times I felt the assembled community of REDD+ supporters was surreal, it did drive home the point that there is broad support for REDD+ because it has the potential to be so good for so many constituencies in the world. 

Keegan

The REDD negotiating text contains two options – Option 1 (from the meetings previously held in Tianjin) and Option 2 (from last year’s COP15 in Copenhagen) .  Most groups thought that Option 2 would likely prevail at the negotiations in Cancun.  Thus, preparations were made to comment on and suggest text as it pertains to Option 2.  However, the Chair’s text (CRP.1) was introduced just prior to the opening of COP-16 in Cancun.  The consensus among most NGOs is that the Chair’s REDD text sets a good starting point, but most are refraining to officially comment until the delegations have indicated which option they wish to pursue.

I notice that numerous groups are working at attempting to incorporate language that includes international demand side drivers and safeguards in all options.  These organizations are adamant that REDD will not be a success until these international drivers are considered and addressed.  This was further emphasized at the UN REDD Programme’s side event on biodiversity, where Michael Bucki of the European Commission (EC) indicated the importance of international drivers and that the EC will be commencing a study on international drivers in January, to be concluded in May.  This, and the universal support of Partners and Stakeholders of the REDD+ Partnership to prioritize the need to address international demand side drivers, will hopefully provide the necessary impetus to ensure a successful outcome for REDD.

Many different discussions are taking place and the negotiations are truly beginning as this is the second week of the COP.  It will be interesting to see what moves through the process and is passed on to the technical working groups.

Alternatively, it is very interesting to note that the voluntary market has approved a number of REDD methodologies in the last week.  With both the REDD Toolbox from Avoided Deforestation Partners and the Mosaic REDD Methodology from Terra Global Capital having completed the double validation process and being released for use by all project developers under the VCS.  This is now the driver of the REDD program, in any real market sense, and is complicating the negotiations as well – as the voluntary market is way out front of the regulatory carbon market on developing methodologies and protocols for REDD projects.  It is an interesting time – to watch the compliance markets rush to stay in front, while already behind.

I can’t wait to see what the outcomes are.

Cheers from warm Cancun (relative to frozen Missoula, Montana!),

Keegan

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If you follow forest conservation or carbon offsets, maybe you read an interesting announcement last month regarding the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  If you missed it, read the Reuters article here.  A carbon offsetting firm announced a nation-wide agreement with all DRC provinces, tribal chiefs, land owners, and the spokesperson of the DRC Senate.  According to the press release, the deal gives the company exclusive rights to develop carbon offset projects in the country, including REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), reforestation, and alternative energy projects.

The DRC is one of the pilot countries in the United Nations REDD Programme, an on-going effort to help developing countries participate in formal, international REDD agreements.  It’s a slow process, but it shouldn’t be circumvented – especially for the DRC, which suffers from weak governance and hosts numerous forest-dwelling communities whose rights and tenure must be respected.  That’s why this announcement raised so many eyebrows.  Could this be a dramatic step forward for the DRC, unifying the numerous stakeholders around one shared agreement?  Or, is this an example of unscrupulous activity in the nascent carbon market, where a foreign firm (a “carbon cowboy,” if you like) swindles the locals?  We hope for the former, as we have witnessed several painful examples of this later behavior in other carbon-rich countries, like Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. 

We should demand increased transparency in the global carbon markets.

Carbon project developers, investors, and country governments can avoid this kind of unkind speculation, simply by being transparent about their projects.  Projects that neglect this rule are always met with criticism and opposition.  According to a World Bank employee, the DRC Ministry of the Environment isn’t aware of the recent agreement, so the DRC government is unlikely committed to the deal.  

The REDD Monitor, a watchdog site, takes a critical view of this announcement.  Can we blame them?  This story will play out in time, of course.  But in the meantime, everyone in the carbon market should remember that transparency is the best policy for avoiding this kind of criticism.  The carbon market has been plagued by bad actors.  Openness and transparency is the only way toward solving this issue.  This should be a clear reminder that in order to link carbon finance to conservation and development goals, honesty is truly the best policy.

ClearSky Climate Solutions is excited to be working on some innovative projects that avoid, or reverse, deforestation from the impending threat of deforestation.  These are exciting projects form a number of perspectives: improved local livelihoods for forest-dependent communities, improved biodiversity habitat via forest ecosystem conservation, improved local governance through transparent agreements on how to share carbon revenue and re-invest in the communities involved, and of course – the mitigation of emissions from deforestation that was slated to occur.  These are the kinds of holistic solutions that ClearSky is most interested in being a part of. 

Human caused climate change is, in fact, caused by human actions.  At ClearSky, if we can help find a way to more effectively manage humans – and their use of the natural resources they have access to – we believe we can more effectively address the emissions of greenhouse gases.  Humans are complicated and behave the way they do for many interconnected and correlated reasons.  Understanding how a solution to one community’s resource problem does not mean it is directly replicable in another community – but it is adding to the library of possibilities that can be leaned on in the future to craft new solutions.  REDD and REDD+ (avoided deforestation that includes a focus on sustainable development, community benefits and ecosystem/biodiversity benefits as well as greenhouse gas benefits) present a unique opportunity to merge numerous interests to solve common problems, with a market based approach. 

REDD/REDD+ are very interesting and potentially revolutionary, by merging ecosystem markets with community development and ecosystem conservation.  There are a number of unresolved, as yet, issues: what is the permanence of the carbon credits created by these projects?  What happens after the project life and crediting period that protects the forest into the future?  What about leakage – and the need for national level, forest carbon accounting standards?  What about the need for transparency in the distribution of financial benefits accruing to a project?  How does the project improve local communities and local governance? Will REDD also improve the forest-dependent peoples’ access to the forest for non-timber forest products, improve their training in value added processing, give them legal tenure claims on customary lands?  These and many other issues need to be cleared up at the international policy level and at the local project implementation level. 

The mere idea that REDD and REDD+ could have a potentially large impact in making the worlds forests worth more standing than they are cut – is exciting.  That the services that forests provide: carbon sinking, oxygen creating, biodiversity habitat holding, evapotranspiring-rain creating systems, soil fertility improving, flood water reducing and retaining are all valuable to the planets and the humans that inhabit it.  The fact that forests are reserves of genetic material, protein banks, seed libraries, spiritual retreats, and add much needed resilience to help stabilize the meteorological systems of our planet all make it easier for humans to live comfortably.  That is what the climate change question is really about……can we agree to make it relatively comfortable for the future generations of humans that will inhabit this little rock – 3rd from the sun?  The changes are evident before our eyes already.  What will we do about it? And how wonderful that there are options to address so many needs simultaneously, with REDD and REDD+ in our toolkits.

As jet-lag refuses to abate, I find myself writing this post at 4:40AM.  It is early morning in Cambodia, and I’m here to have a look at the new Avoided Deforestation project being designed in Northern Cambodia.  The Oddar Meanchey Community Forest REDD Project, implemented by The Forest Administration of Cambodia, Terra Global Capital, and Pact Inc.  There is a novel experiment happening in the forest of Cambodia – rural, forest-dependent communities are being engaged in the international carbon market in a way not previously seen.  Numerous communties along a river valley, that leads eventually to the Mekong River, are aggregating their good stewardship of their forests in an avoided deforestation project.  The rural communities are all being vested with secure land title from the national forestry authority.  This is something of great importance to the communities, and something they have never had.  It is also considered to be a lynchpin to achieving sustainable management by forest communities around the world.  If the people become owners of the lands, are they apt to manage it differently than if they are users of the forest?  That’s the question.  It is often taken for granted that a homeowner treats the home beter than a tenant renting the space.  Is that true of forests as well?

The accumulation of rural farming villages, tree resin collectors, and buddhist monks leading the various communities have aggregated their efforts to protect their forests.  It is now “their” forests.  In exchange for protection and monitoring, guarding and measuring their forests against threats of harvest from outside, the communities also hope to gain access to the voluntary carbon marketplace.  The project is in the finals stages of validation/verification under the Voluntary Carbon Standard.  It will soon generate revenues from the sale of carbon credits, which will be shared amongst the Forest Administration, TerraGlobal Capital and the communities themselves. 

ClearSky is keenly interested in seeing the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) carbon credit marketplace take off in a robust manner.  It has a unique opportunity to be a win-win-win scenario.  By intimately involving communities in the design/implementation and rewards of a carbon project, the carbon funds can bring about more secure livelihoods for forest-dependent peoples around the world.  At the same time, REDD proejcts can protect the atmosphere and climate regime as well as the forests and biodiversity from areas that have not been significantly impacted. 

If the experiment works – it can achieve numerous goals at the same time.  That is something well worth looking into!

With the newest climate change bill unveiled in the Senate last week, it has kick-started the same debate: to ’solve’ climate change or to focus on reviving the economy.  Interestingly, there are few actors in the policy and economic debate that view the two goals as linked.  However, bringing about a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions IS an economic development activity.  I find the inability to link the two goals in the news to be fascinating.  How is it possible that the US discourse can be so short-term?  How can the planet’s future ability to comfortably sustain human society be addressed by a system that has tremendous difficulty seeing beyond the next election cycle, the next fiscal-year, the fiscal quarter or the close of business stock price?  It is proving to be quite a challenge!

That said, the more bills that come out of the House and Senate, the better chance we have of joining the world in earnestly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.  Having looked at the bill, and its predecesors, it comes nowhere close to the target set by the international scientific community.  But then, it appears that isn’t the goal of the first piece of climate change legislation in the US.  Instead, it appears that the goal is really to START….and to then adapt and fix it along the way.

As the long, heart-breaking process of watching the US Senate wrangle through another piece of climate legislation begins, it is a good time to reflect and take a deep breath.  As the teeth of the legislation become dull during the process, it is important to realize that TO START is the key.  To make the new societal baseline understanding, “one of action” appears to be the key.  After all, if the carbon market is still considered a key component of our response to climate change in 50 years – we will have missed the boat.  It is a great transitional tool, to leverage the efficiency of markets to achieve the common goal of reduced greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.  But the ultimate goal, transitioning off of a fossil fuel economy is the key to humanity’s response to this challenge.  The carbon market, and carbon offsets provide a unique opportunity to make the transition away from our fossil fuel addiction much easier and quicker – but the carbon offset, in and of itself, is not the solution.

I guess, understanding the ultimate goal and comparing that to the current state of debate – one can take heart that the debate has begun…….and NONE TOO SOON (and a little bit late)!!!

Another deep breath…….and a lot of work…..and we’ll change the world.

Keegan Eisenstadt