What we could achieve at the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference

From the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Brasília

At the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference, countries will come together to establish a global partnership to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+). Shared goals will be set, a coordinating institution for the partnership designated, commitments to actions and financing made, guidelines agreed, and a framework for transparency and coordination set up. By establishing the first adequately funded, global, sector wide, transparent and coordinated fast start climate change partnership, the conference could signal a new era in global climate change efforts.

In the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations, countries are working towards a comprehensive, legally binding, global agreement to tackle climate change. Progress has been significant, and more should be achieved in Cancun later this year.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+) is one crucial element of the global effort to contain climate change.

REDD+ could provide large, timely and cost-effective emission reductions. While deep, sustained cuts in developed country emissions are urgent and necessary, REDD+ is indispensable if global warming is to be limited to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. REDD+ also has significant benefits for biodiversity, climate change adaptation and livelihoods.

Significant progress on REDD+ has been achieved in the UNFCCC negotiations, and the ultimate goal remains a UNFCCC REDD+ mechanism. The purpose of the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference is to help get effective, transparent and coordinated fast start action on REDD+ started while UNFCCC negotiations continue. The partnership could thereby inspire the UNFCCC negotiations on the way to Cancun and beyond.

The global REDD+ partnership will incorporate new and existing REDD+ efforts into one coherent framework. The framework could consist of a set of shared goals, an improved institutional architecture, commitments to actions and financing, alignment around shared guidelines, and concrete measures to improve transparency and coordination.

The following set of shared goals could be established:
- Implement REDD+ within the framework of sustainable development strategies, focusing on the preservation of biodiversity, and with broad stakeholder participation, including that of indigenous peoples and local communities. Trees are more than sticks of carbon. The partnership approach to REDD+ should reflect that fact.
- More effective use of fast start funds. The partners would collectively work to ensure that available funding is leveraged in an effective manner. Funding should match actions, commitments and absorptive capacity. Measures to simplify access to funding should be considered without compromising needed fiduciary, environmental and social safeguards.
- Learning lessons, establishing best practices and rapidly feed those into the UNFCCC process. The partners could commit to generate lessons learned, derive best practices and feed those back into the UNFCCC negotiations.
- Effective implementation of safeguards. The partners could commit to effective implementation of safeguards, building on existing guidelines in bilateral and multilateral efforts, adhering to the spirit of the draft UNFCCC LCA text, and working together to continuously improve the social and environmental integrity of REDD+ efforts.
- Alignment around medium and long term REDD+ aspirations and improved visibility on future financing and commitments. The partners could agree a goal of significant, sustainable reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions from slowing, stopping, and reversing forest and peat land destruction in developing countries. To this end, and to help improve clarity on the medium term evolution of the REDD+ regime, the partners could agree to work within the framework of the UNFCCC negotiations towards the goal of significantly stepping up both financing and actions for REDD+ post-2012.

Targeted modifications to the international REDD+ institutional architecture could be agreed to increase its effectiveness. A coordinating institution could be designated. It would be open to REDD+ partners and have a country-run governance structure served by a dedicated secretariat. Other multilateral initiatives could have their briefs adjusted to leverage their comparative advantages to support the REDD+ partnership to the fullest possible extent.

Improved coordination and full transparency will be crucial to the success of the REDD+ partnership. For this purpose, countries could commit to the establishment of a voluntary REDD+ coordination database, into which they would submit all significant information on their REDD+ financing, actions and results. The database should be open to the public, and could be developed and maintained by the coordinating institution mentioned above in collaboration with other key multilateral REDD+ initiatives. This would provide the transparency needed to identify funding gaps and overlaps as well as possible synergies.

Commitments - from developing countries for actions and results, from developed countries for financing and other assistance - would be at the heart of the partnership. Brazil and Indonesia have pledged significant voluntary emission reductions. In Copenhagen, 6 developed countries' pledged 3.5 billion USD to REDD+ for 2010-2012. More commitments could be added before the Oslo conference. If the total financing commitment could be increased to 4-5 billion USD, developed countries would be pledging REDD+ finance proportional to the 30 billion USD 2010-2012 Copenhagen Accord commitment.

The partnership should be based on a set of shared guidelines. Care should be taken, however, to avoid pre-empting the UNFCCC negotiations in the establishment of standards and principles. The partners could build on the broad agreement already emerging under the UNFCCC as well as principles established in existing REDD+ initiatives. In sum this would contribute to ensuring environmental integrity, the participation of indigenous peoples and other local communities and the safeguarding of biodiversity and human rights. A civil society advisory board to the partnership's coordinating institution could help facilitate this.

The crucial success factor of REDD+ will be the ability to establish a partnership culture, a willingness to work together under uncertainty towards shared goals. Developing countries must over time be assured that they will receive adequate, sustainable and predictable funding when they deliver verified results. Developed countries must be assured that they get value for money. While the rule-set for this larger global effort must be agreed under the UNFCCC negotiations, the underlying trust could be strengthened through collaborative fast-start action.

The importance of the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference is to establish the framework within which this partnership can develop. A REDD+ partnership is not the whole answer to the climate change challenge, but it is a significant part of the answer. And by showing that such a partnership can be established, the countries meeting in Oslo could provide inspiration for similar sectoral efforts, bringing us closer to success in the battle against climate change.