A Letter to Santa

6 November 2009

The Christmas season has come early for developed countries who have been invited to present their Christmas wish lists for forest management at Copenhagen.  It has been two years since LULUCF negotiators started debating how to account for forest management in the next commitment period, in particular what baseline to use.

The result is a total failure of leadership from developed countries.  They will be coming to Copenhagen with a baseline of their choosing using their favorite loopholes to make absolutely sure that the forest management sector is subject to no pressure to reduce emissions.

This is terrible news for the climate. For example, Parties can set their baseline to include increased emissions from this sector, or they could disappear into a Bermuda Triangle for emissions called the “band to zero.”   Under this approach countries can earn credits but would only earn debits after their entire forest sink was reduced to zero.  This would not at all reflect what the atmosphere sees and could allow countries to degrade their natural forests without incurring any penalty.

This alarming failure of Annex I country leadership threatens to undermine the integrity of the climate deal.  If it remains unchanged, the only hope for environmental integrity in the LULUCF rules will rest with the scrutiny of non-Annex I parties and observers in Copenhagen.  But effective scrutiny will be difficult given the complexity of data and modeling involved for every country’s baseline.

ECO notes that naughty children are usually denied their wishes for Christmas and sees no reason why this year should be any different.  These LULUCF loopholes should be taken off the table as soon as possible.