Nepal has already signed the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) agreement for developing countries, a new concept part of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
This doesn’t mean Nepal will receive money for all its forests. The deal is complex and still not finalized. Nepal is currently receiving support from the World Bank to develop REDD mechanisms.
Carbon-trading is a tricky business. Most are unfamiliar with recent developments in the world of environmentalism, the Kyoto Protocol to be precise, and do not even know what carbon-trading is.
Given in plain language, carbon-trading translates to the agreement whereby developed countries pay developing countries to undertake environmentally-friendly projects, thereby enabling the developed countries to continue polluting in return. This way, carbon-free technology which produces the energy equivalent to fossil fuel burning technology producing a ton of carbon, will fetch developing countries around $10 in the international market.
A few years back, Nepal received news it was entitled to Rs 43.4 million for two bio-gas projects. Micro-hydropower plants have also received qualification to bring foreign cash into the country, and the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre of the Ministry of Environment is finding ways to include traditional systems, such as pani ghatta (water mills), to qualify for carbon-trading as well.
While the Kyoto Protocol allows only clean energy mechanisms to qualify for carbon-trading under the CDM, the The Bali Conference held in December 2007 spoke for the first time about reforestation being the cheapest way to help counter global warming.
Forty-percent of Nepal consists of forestland. According to Hemant Ojha of Forest Action Nepal, community forests alone have a carbon offset value of around $30 million (US$967,000) per year.
Reports confirm that forest degradation is responsible for 20% of global CO2 emissions. Thus REDD is believed to be a way of countering global-warming by encouraging developing countries to plant trees in degraded areas.
“We are a developing country, and our forest degradation rate is high. It is 1.7% of the total forest area of Nepal. We must reduce forestry degradation in our country, and talk about how people who live in the forests, or near them, are affected,” writes Bhola Bhattarai, an environmentalist in the Care Climate Change website.
At an international level, environmentalists regard REDD as yet another way for developed countries to get away with reducing their own carbon emissions. No wonder REDD was the most controversial topic at this year’s environmental conference in Poznan, Poland.
“Indigenous people had a problem with the way REDD was heading, because it was focusing too much on carbon-trading, and too little on the livelihood of the people who directly relied on the forests,” says Ojha, part of the team who prepared a draft about Nepal’s stance on REDD for the Poznan conference.
He adds, “Since REDD is not finalized yet, we do not know how much money it will bring to the country. I feel it is a concern of policymakers at a national level to insure that the money goes to those living around forests, who are among the poorest in the country.”
kushal@myrepublica.com
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