$10-billion eyed for UN reforestation drive
By MYRNA M. VELASCO | Manila Bulletin | January 2, 2010
Global environment authorities are eyeing a $10-billion yearly budget to finance reforestation through the United Nation's REDD (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) which should boost carbon emission reduction efforts of poorer countries like the Philippines through a REDD financing scheme.
A financing mechanism, a workable one such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) on climate change reduction, is a necessity to fund REDD as the huge value of forests in eco-tourism and in providing food, fuel, and building materials are also emphasized on top of their climate change-reversing value.
The reforestation effort in developing countries is a top priority among international environment negotiators even beyond the Copenhagen meet last month. The reforestation is a major focus of REDD now since the Kyoto Protocol originally had broad-based approach to carbon emission reduction. In the Philippines, the carbon emission reduction programs that earned carbon credits came mostly from projects on green fuel that reduced methane or carbon dioxide emission (such as biogas, biomass projects).
This is as deforestation and forest degradation is a major problem in developing countries primarily because forest land is being converted for agriculture or food use. While subsistence agriculture is the primary cause of carbon emitting-deforestation, other causes are intensive agriculture, ranching-pasture, and logging. Global deforestation mainly from tropical forests is estimated to emit 5.8 gigatons per year and which may be increasing.
A UN-REDD Commissioned study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia indicated that potential market and non-market schemes for raising funding for REDD may be through contribution of developed country-parties as a percentage of their gross domestic product; contribution of all country-participants, except Least Developed Countries (LDC) through a criteria such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emission; and an auctioning system of a country's assigned allowable GHG emission amount at the international or national level.
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