18 August 2008
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and five other African countries were included in a list of 14 that will take part in the Bank's controversial Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).
The World Bank took the next step in making its controversial Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) a reality on July 24 when it announced the list of countries that would be eligible to receive grant funding to prepare for participation in the initiative.
Six of the 14 countries chosen are in Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, and Madagascar. Five countries in Latin America and three in Asia were also selected.
The FCPF is designed to reward countries which preserve endangered forests, and is a response to the long-acknowledged fact that deforestation and piecemeal degradation of natural forests is responsible for between twelve and twenty percent of the carbon emissions contributing to global warming. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with the consequent release of carbon are the only kind to come primarily from developing countries. Impoverished peoples seeking new farmland are the typical agents of deforestation, so addressing the problem requires acute attention to livelihoods and income opportunities for vulnerable communities.
The DRC, the largest country in the Congo Basin, which hosts the world’s second-largest surviving tropical forest, was expected to be included in the program, although there were some doubts about whether its administrative infrastructure would be judged viable. In 2007, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel issued a damning report on Bank-sponsored forestry projects in DRC in which entire populations of indigenous Pygmies were disregarded. Both Congolese and international groups involved in that complaint to the Bank will be watching keenly to see how the FCPF is implemented in the DRC.
The announcement of the eligible countries was made at a two-day meeting of the FCPF’s Steering Committee in Paris. The constitution of that body has been a bone of contention. It now includes an equal number of developing (potential beneficiary) and industrialized (donor) countries, as well as observers from inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and forest-dependent peoples. The last category was hastily added to the list of observers in late 2007, as a result of consultations with civil society where it became obvious that indigenous peoples and others living in the forests had largely been omitted from discussions about the FCPF. The last-minute structural changes occurred as the World Bank was preparing to publicly unveil the initiative at the Bali climate summit of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2007.
The 14 countries will participate in programs of “reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation” (REDD). Through the FCPF, they will get grants to be used for “readiness” – establishing baseline emission reference levels, creating new strategies, and designing methodologies for monitoring progress. When projects are implemented and progress is certified, governments will earn carbon credits which can then be traded on international markets.
The FCPF is controversial because it is an extension of carbon trading, a profit-based market mechanism created and maintained largely by the World Bank that many environmental groups say has had dubious impacts on reducing emissions. Carbon trading schemes like the FCPF risk creating “perverse incentives” – countries or companies may initiate destructive behavior in order to be paid to stop it. Indeed, debate continues over whether a program of incentives to preserve forests should be structured on the basis of improvements over a past record of destruction, or rewards for countries which have maintained good forest conservation records all along. The FCPF has opted for the former model, which is likely open to more abuse. Indeed, many environmental groups are concerned that logging companies claiming to use “sustainable” methods will be among the main beneficiaries of the program – a concern that neither the Bank nor others supporting FCPF have denied.
This week, the UNFCCC holds another meeting in Accra, Ghana. Civil society groups from across Africa will be meeting in advance of the official sessions to establish a network of groups on the continent working on climate issues. Another civil society meeting, drawing activists from around the world, will debate approaches to REDD.
Resources
- World Bank Names Countries for Forest Carbon Fund by Lesley Wroughton, Reuters, July 24, 2008
- Seeing the forest for the carbon? World Bank brings “market-making” to tropical forests by Nikki Reisch, December 3, 2007
- Seeing ‘RED’? ‘Avoided deforestation’ and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, by Tom Griffiths, Forest Peoples Programme, June 2007
- 14 countries win REDD funding to protect tropical forests, Mongabay, July 24, 2008
- World Bank Inspection Panel page on DRC forestry project, World Bank