EU steps up battle to halt deforestation by 2030

Reuters 17 Oct 08;

WWF labels the effort 'lame' (see below)

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's environment chief suggested using some of the cash generated by the EU's landmark emissions trading scheme to tackle the loss of forests, home to half the world's known species and a third of its land area.

Speaking at a news conference on Friday, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said he wanted to reduce gross tropical deforestation by at least 50 percent by 2020 and halt global forest cover loss by 2030 at the latest.

"We are not going to have effective tackling of global warming if we do not take care of this type of activity," he said. "Without stopping deforestation, the biodiversity loss will continue ... in 10 square kilometers' of tropical rainforest, there are more species than in the entire EU."

Deforestation is responsible for almost 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and has become a key issue in the international negotiations currently under way on a new U.N. climate change agreement for the post-2012 period.

Forests are currently disappearing at a rate of about 13 million hectares per year, about the size of Greece.

At the U.N. negotiations, Dimas said, the European Commission wanted to work toward setting up a Global Forest Carbon Mechanism (GFCM), where developing countries would be rewarded for their emissions cuts achieved by actions taken to reduce deforestation.

But that would need a serious amount of funding, which could come from the proceeds of auctioning carbon permits to businesses participating in the EU's emissions trading scheme.

If 5 percent of this revenue were made available to the GFCM, this could raise up to 2.5 billion euros in 2020, he said.

The Commission also wants to test whether "deforestation credits," meaning carbon offsets generated from avoiding deforestation, could be used to help governments reach their post-2012 emission reduction targets.

But this would be done under a pilot phase, and such offsets would not be available for sale to businesses involved in the EU emissions trading scheme before 2020.

Friday's proposals also encouraged the use of labeling schemes to help curb the import into Europe of illegally harvested timber. Green groups said those plans lacked teeth.

"The Commission's proposal for this law will not help European consumers know if the flat-pack wardrobe they bought last Saturday is the result of forest crime," said Sebastien Risso, Greenpeace EU forest policy director.

(Reporting by Jeremy Smith; Editing by Gerard Wynn)

EC issues lame deforestation plans
WWF 17 Oct 08;

Brussels, Belgium: European Commission plans to halve rather than halt tropical deforestation by 2020 have been sharply criticized by WWF today.

The European Commission's communication on reducing emissions from deforestation and a legislative proposal to tackle the problem of illegal logging are unlikely to meet their intended objectives of halting deforestation and eliminating the trade of illegal wood, according to the global conservation organization.

At the Convention on Biological Diversity, last May in Bonn, representatives of more than 60 countries signed up to a WWF commitment to achieve zero net deforestation by 2020. WWF urges the European Union to maintain this target.

“The EU has finally recognised the need for legislation to address the trade in products from illegally sourced timber,” said Anke Schulmeister, Forest Policy Officer at WWF. “However, the draft proposal presented today does not have the teeth needed to seriously clamp down on this trade.” says Anke Schulmeister, Forest Policy Officer at WWF.

Deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for about 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and illegal logging is one of the major causes. Every year about 27 million cubic meters of illegal timber enter the EU.

Today’s proposal does not bind companies all along the supply chain to provide credible assurances that their timber is legally sourced. It also does not clearly specify whether source country laws, such as those protecting land tenure rights of local peoples, need to be covered by these assurances.

WWF calls the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers to move rapidly to strengthen the proposal so that, as soon as possible, legislation is in place to effectively stop the trade of illegal wood and paper products.