New Research Changes the Game

Cancun did produce some important developments in negotiations on forestry. One in particular is set to disrupt the foundations upon which the entire REDD philosophy, and NGO campaigning, is presupposed.

A climate change orthodoxy – that deforestation is a major cause of emissions by developing countries – has been disproved.

Lord Stern, the British government climate scientist, was largely responsible for establishing as mainstream thinking the proposition that deforestation in countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and Congo causes 17% of global climate emissions. Greenpeace conflated this to 20%, without evidence.

Soon afterward, Indonesia and Brazil were cajoled by large European aid donors, climate research institutes, modelling by McKinsey and NGOs such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to commit to dramatic strategies to reduce emissions. On this basis, Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono committed Indonesia to reducing emissions by 26% – and even 41% if wealthy donors would finance the cost.

Forest and Economic ministries in developing countries have always suspected the Stern numbers were exaggerated.

New research, produced by the reputable US-based consultancy, Winrock International, on commission from the World Bank and the Norwegian Government, proves they were right.

It finds that deforestation accounts for only 6 to 8 percent of global emissions and that the numbers will fall further when carbon stored by forest regrowth is counted (it was not by Stern and others).  This means that the rates of the contribution of deforestation to emissions used by Lord Stern are more than twice as large as they should be.

The findings have huge implications.

The Winrock research decisively points out that conversion of forest to other uses is not a major source of emissions.

And if forestry emissions are now minor, the importance and relevance of the REDD program is now also reduced.

The Cancun meeting was built up to deliver a deal on REDD – to show the negotiations were alive and that some important developing countries were ready to cut emissions.

The Winrock numbers are a game-changer. Robert Houghton of the World Resources Institute – the doyen of deforestation emissions – has already reduced his estimate of 17% of emissions from deforestation, on which Lord Stern had relied, by about one fifth.