South American Environmental Trusts Join Columbia Center to Create Amazon Forest Carbon Credits
Five environmental trust funds in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have joined with Columbia University’s Center for Environment, Economy, and Society to establish the Amazon Forest Carbon Partnership, a collaboration to reduce carbon emissions and provide an economic alternative for forest dwelling communities and commercial enterprises in the Amazon. The issue of forest carbon credit, in which wealthy countries offset their emissions by compensating land holders for preserving forests, was a core point of negotiations at the global climate summit in Copenhagen.
A number of issues still need to be resolved, but the scheme on reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is likely to make progress at the climate conference, says the chairman of the REDD talks within the UN climate negotiations. The potential is an agreement on a carbon trading scheme worth billions of dollars a year from 2013.
"I think it's a foregone conclusion that REDD will be part of the new agreement. Ironically it's actually the most advanced now," says Tony La Vina, chair of the REDD negotiations, to Reuters.
Faulty systems at the Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility
As the Bank seeks to position itself as the vehicle of choice for future climate finance, the experience of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) calls its competence into question.
