Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

 There have been repeated attempts since 2005 to secure a meaningful international agreement to save the tropical forests, and still it has not been achieved.

 The urgency for reform is that tropical deforestation and degradation represent 17 per cent of global emissions. And if you could quickly take concrete measures to reverse the trend, you’re one step ahead in the much bigger battle to redress the excessive intensity in the carbon based world economy.

 Deforestation puts Indonesia in No3 place in world carbon emissions, closely followed by Brazil in No 4 place.

 2008 saw the creation of the US based bipartisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests to develop a plan for halving emissions from tropical forest destruction within a decade. This is achievable with plans by Brazil to reduce emissions from the Amazon by 80 per cent within a decade.

 One of the directors of the commission Michael G Moore is chief executive of American Electric Power, an environmentally model company, both in the US, and in a collaborative effort with two conservation movements in the Atlantic Rain Forest of southern Brazil. Here on acquired land, they are assisting natural forest regeneration and regrowth on pastures and degraded forests.

 This December in Copenhagen, in an effort to reach finality for tropical forest protection, United States had proposed a funding deal of US$ 25 billion. This would be largely funded through offsets as provided in the emissions trading scheme in Europe, and in the proposed emissions trading schemes to be implemented in the US and Australia.

 The US had the support of the 40 member Coalition for Rainforest Nations, as well as Brazil, which along with Indonesia, has been in the forefront of REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation). A UN backed scheme had proposed that REDD carbon credits could be available for developing countries that protected their forests from illegal logging and other land clearing for cattle grazing, and for growing soy and oil palms.

 The Rainforest Coalition saw a carbon price of US$10 a tonne, which has been received in the carbon markets in Europe as a cost effective way to curb emissions from deforestation. A report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature released such a report last week.

 It says the opportunity costs for cattle grazing in Brazil ranges from zero to $2 a tonne, as against soybean production of $2.5-3.5 a tonne. In Indonesia, opportunity costs for conversion to oil palms could be as low as 49 cents a tonne for small holder farming, and as high as $19.6 depending on the rate of converting degraded forest land to oil seeds. Unsustainable logging on a commercial scale in Sumatra would have opportunity costs of $1.65 a tonne.

 The $25 billion has been withdrawn from the table and a critical time table to reduce deforestation 40 per cent by 2020 has gone with it. In its place is a scheme of $3.5 billion over the next three years, with the US putting up $1 billion. Other contributors are France, Japan, Norway, United Kingdom and Australia.

 If Charles Dickens was alive today, he would say with his character Oliver Twist, “Please Sir, can I have some more.”