UK Government’s Rainforest Report Sparks Mixed Reaction
Green groups have had a mixed reaction to a new report, commissioned by the British government, on how to deal with deforestation and its impact on climate change.
The Eliasch Review, entitled Climate Change: Financing Global Forests, provides a particular focus on the financial side of this issue. It has also been written in anticipation of a new climate change deal in Copenhagan in late, 2009.
A key recommendation of the report is for a multi-billion fund be set up to provide financial incentives to rainforest nations, so that their rainforests become more valuable alive than dead.
The report also suggests that “an ambitious international climate change deal should aim to halve deforestation emissions by 2020 and make the forest sector carbon neutral by 2030″.
According to Greenpeace, this isn’t ambitious enough.
“This report shows a dangerous lack of ambition and vastly underestimates the scale of the action needed to tackle climate change” says Andy Tait, Greenpeace head of biodiversity.
“The review assumes a target of 50% emissions cuts by 2050. This is simply inadequate. There is a strong possibility that the UK will be legally obliged to make an 80% reduction over this period, and all developed countries will need to hit and possibly exceed this target to effectively tackle climate change” he continued.
Note that Greenpeace have previously proposed their own solution for saving the world’s rainforests.
Tom Pickens, from Friends of the Earth was also concerned about the Eliasch Review. He said “This scheme has the potential to cause even greater conflict over forests”.
But not all environmental groups shared this sentiment.
WWF-UK say the review is “welcome recognition of the importance of reducing emissions through deforestation in a global agreement to tackle climate change”.
“Sufficient and long-term funding is needed to act as an incentive to protect forests. More than one billion of the world’s poorest people rely on forests for their livelihoods, so any measures to reduce emissions from deforestation must ensure that local communities enjoy continued access to, and benefits from, forests resources” said Emily Brickell, climate and forests officer for WWF-UK.
However, while WWF-UK praise the report for its recommendations, they still believe more could be done. In particular, they believe other sources of funding should be considered, such as the use of revenues from the auctioning of pollution permits under the EU emissions trading scheme.
View the Eliasch Review web page, or download the full report (large PDF document).
Tags: deforestation, rainforests
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