24/05/2010
On Friday (May 21), the Brazilian Environment
Minister Izabella Teixeira announced that
in July, in preparation for the fourth meeting
of the BASIC (group formed by Brazil, South
Africa, India and China), in Rio de Janeiro,
debates on Biodiversity and Climate will
be promoted in Rio and in São Paulo.
"It is time to mobilize society around
this theme", said the minister.
On the same day, Izabella
launched the online version of the List
of Species of the Brazilian Flora, in a
ceremony at the Botanical Garden of Rio
de Janeiro (JBRJ). The JBRJ was appointed
by the Ministry of the Environment (MMA)
to coordinate, through the National Center
for Flora Conservation (CNCFlora), the work
of preparing the list, which involved about
400 Brazilian and foreign taxonomists aimed
at identifying and characterizing species
of native plants nationwide.
The list has 41,123
species of plants. "It is with satisfaction
that, within the celebrations of the International
Day for Biological Diversity, we present
an updated list of the Brazilian flora,
which represents an advance in achieving
the goals proposed by the United Nations
Convention on Biological Diversity and an
improvement on the knowledge about our flora",
said Izabella.
For the general coordinator
of the project, Rafaela Campostrini Forzza,
this is just the beginning. "The idea
is to update the list periodically to include
new species and taxonomic changes. We hope
this site also makes available other information
about the flora in the near future."
In the same event at the
Botanical Garden, the Ministry has launched
the Portuguese version of the Global Biodiversity
Outlook (GBO3), a report made by the Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD). The document
will guide discussions among the participating
countries in the international meeting scheduled
for October in Japan.
According to the document,
the loss of global biodiversity is reaching
a level almost irreversible. The document
released by the United Nations on May 10
says that no country has fully complied
with the goals of reducing biodiversity
loss between 2002 and 2010.
"The news is not
good. But we must emphasize that Brazil
has made great advances, for example the
fall of 75% in deforestation in the Brazilian
Amazon Rainforest", said the secretary
for Biodiversity Conservation of the MMA,
Bráulio Dias.
For the 10th Conference
of the CBD, to be held in October in Nagoya
(Japan), signatory countries should define
new targets for reducing biodiversity loss
in the coming years.
+ More
What we could achieve
at the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference
25/05/2010
From the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Brasília
At the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference,
countries will come together to establish
a global partnership to reduce emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation
in developing countries (REDD+). Shared
goals will be set, a coordinating institution
for the partnership designated, commitments
to actions and financing made, guidelines
agreed, and a framework for transparency
and coordination set up. By establishing
the first adequately funded, global, sector
wide, transparent and coordinated fast start
climate change partnership, the conference
could signal a new era in global climate
change efforts.
In the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
negotiations, countries are working towards
a comprehensive, legally binding, global
agreement to tackle climate change. Progress
has been significant, and more should be
achieved in Cancun later this year.
Reducing emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation in
developing countries (REDD+) is one crucial
element of the global effort to contain
climate change.
REDD+ could provide
large, timely and cost-effective emission
reductions. While deep, sustained cuts in
developed country emissions are urgent and
necessary, REDD+ is indispensable if global
warming is to be limited to two degrees
Celsius above pre-industrial levels. REDD+
also has significant benefits for biodiversity,
climate change adaptation and livelihoods.
Significant progress
on REDD+ has been achieved in the UNFCCC
negotiations, and the ultimate goal remains
a UNFCCC REDD+ mechanism. The purpose of
the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference is
to help get effective, transparent and coordinated
fast start action on REDD+ started while
UNFCCC negotiations continue. The partnership
could thereby inspire the UNFCCC negotiations
on the way to Cancun and beyond.
The global REDD+ partnership
will incorporate new and existing REDD+
efforts into one coherent framework. The
framework could consist of a set of shared
goals, an improved institutional architecture,
commitments to actions and financing, alignment
around shared guidelines, and concrete measures
to improve transparency and coordination.
The following set of
shared goals could be established:
- Implement REDD+ within the framework of
sustainable development strategies, focusing
on the preservation of biodiversity, and
with broad stakeholder participation, including
that of indigenous peoples and local communities.
Trees are more than sticks of carbon. The
partnership approach to REDD+ should reflect
that fact.
- More effective use of fast start funds.
The partners would collectively work to
ensure that available funding is leveraged
in an effective manner. Funding should match
actions, commitments and absorptive capacity.
Measures to simplify access to funding should
be considered without compromising needed
fiduciary, environmental and social safeguards.
- Learning lessons, establishing best practices
and rapidly feed those into the UNFCCC process.
The partners could commit to generate lessons
learned, derive best practices and feed
those back into the UNFCCC negotiations.
- Effective implementation of safeguards.
The partners could commit to effective implementation
of safeguards, building on existing guidelines
in bilateral and multilateral efforts, adhering
to the spirit of the draft UNFCCC LCA text,
and working together to continuously improve
the social and environmental integrity of
REDD+ efforts.
- Alignment around medium and long term
REDD+ aspirations and improved visibility
on future financing and commitments. The
partners could agree a goal of significant,
sustainable reductions in net greenhouse
gas emissions from slowing, stopping, and
reversing forest and peat land destruction
in developing countries. To this end, and
to help improve clarity on the medium term
evolution of the REDD+ regime, the partners
could agree to work within the framework
of the UNFCCC negotiations towards the goal
of significantly stepping up both financing
and actions for REDD+ post-2012.
Targeted modifications
to the international REDD+ institutional
architecture could be agreed to increase
its effectiveness. A coordinating institution
could be designated. It would be open to
REDD+ partners and have a country-run governance
structure served by a dedicated secretariat.
Other multilateral initiatives could have
their briefs adjusted to leverage their
comparative advantages to support the REDD+
partnership to the fullest possible extent.
Improved coordination
and full transparency will be crucial to
the success of the REDD+ partnership. For
this purpose, countries could commit to
the establishment of a voluntary REDD+ coordination
database, into which they would submit all
significant information on their REDD+ financing,
actions and results. The database should
be open to the public, and could be developed
and maintained by the coordinating institution
mentioned above in collaboration with other
key multilateral REDD+ initiatives. This
would provide the transparency needed to
identify funding gaps and overlaps as well
as possible synergies.
Commitments - from developing
countries for actions and results, from
developed countries for financing and other
assistance - would be at the heart of the
partnership. Brazil and Indonesia have pledged
significant voluntary emission reductions.
In Copenhagen, 6 developed countries' pledged
3.5 billion USD to REDD+ for 2010-2012.
More commitments could be added before the
Oslo conference. If the total financing
commitment could be increased to 4-5 billion
USD, developed countries would be pledging
REDD+ finance proportional to the 30 billion
USD 2010-2012 Copenhagen Accord commitment.
The partnership should
be based on a set of shared guidelines.
Care should be taken, however, to avoid
pre-empting the UNFCCC negotiations in the
establishment of standards and principles.
The partners could build on the broad agreement
already emerging under the UNFCCC as well
as principles established in existing REDD+
initiatives. In sum this would contribute
to ensuring environmental integrity, the
participation of indigenous peoples and
other local communities and the safeguarding
of biodiversity and human rights. A civil
society advisory board to the partnership's
coordinating institution could help facilitate
this.
The crucial success
factor of REDD+ will be the ability to establish
a partnership culture, a willingness to
work together under uncertainty towards
shared goals. Developing countries must
over time be assured that they will receive
adequate, sustainable and predictable funding
when they deliver verified results. Developed
countries must be assured that they get
value for money. While the rule-set for
this larger global effort must be agreed
under the UNFCCC negotiations, the underlying
trust could be strengthened through collaborative
fast-start action.
The importance of the
Oslo Climate and Forest Conference is to
establish the framework within which this
partnership can develop. A REDD+ partnership
is not the whole answer to the climate change
challenge, but it is a significant part
of the answer. And by showing that such
a partnership can be established, the countries
meeting in Oslo could provide inspiration
for similar sectoral efforts, bringing us
closer to success in the battle against
climate change.
