Delegates near deal on tropical forests

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Delegates were nearing a deal to protect tropical forests, although several substantive issues remained unresolved, including targets for reducing deforestation and money to pay for conservation plans and how that money would be raised, according to the latest draft of a text.

The program called REDD, for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, would be financed either by richer nations’ taxpayers or by a carbon-trading mechanism—a system in which each country would have an emissions ceiling, and those who undershoot it can sell their remainder to over-polluters.

Two Filipinos played crucial roles in the REDD negotiations, as this part of the UN framework is called: Tony La Viña, dean of the Ateneo School of Government, served as lead negotiator; while Vicky Corpuz, chair of the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, shepherded the discussion on indigenous peoples, a crucial, controversial component of the REDD agreement.

The REDD program seeks to enhance forest carbon stock in the same countries.

Negotiators, who have been working for 10 days, have just two days left to broker one of the most ambitious yet complex deals in human history, but days of bitter wrangling between key players have provoked grim warnings of failure.

World leaders gathered at climate talks on Wednesday after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged them to seize a “defining moment in history” and seal a global pact to halt the juggernaut of climate change.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, together with husband Jose Miguel Arroyo and a relatively lean delegation, left Manila Wednesday noon on a chartered Philippine Airlines flight for Copenhagen to attend the conference.

The summit aims to secure national pledges to curb the heat-trapping carbon gases wreaking havoc with Earth’s climate system, and set up a mechanism to provide billions of dollars for poor countries facing worsening drought, flood, storms and rising seas.

US-China deadlock

The success of the UN climate conference hung in the balance on Tuesday as China and the United States deadlocked over whether Beijing will allow the world to check its books and verify promised cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Reflecting the deadlock, a new draft text gave no figures for a long-term goal of reducing emissions, a peak for emissions, an intended limit to warming, or on financing for poor countries exposed to climate change.

These core questions were farmed out to small parties of ministers, charged with brokering a consensus.

A participant described the negotiations, which ran till the wee hours for the second straight night, as a “roller coaster” of a ride, mainly because of American negotiating positions.

But a breakthrough agreement on deforestation has been all but completed, and it could mean billions of dollars in compensation for developing countries able to preserve their forests.

Signs point to done deal

REDD recognizes that deforestation is responsible for anywhere between 12 and 20 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Conversely, forests serve as a carbon sink, absorbing the carbon dioxide in the air.

A deforestation deal would encourage developing countries to preserve forest cover by paying them for it (the mechanism for funding still needs to be worked out); it would also benefit developed economies who can buy carbon credits.

“It is likely to be the most concrete thing that comes out of Copenhagen—and it is a very big thing,” Fred Krupp, head of the US-based Environmental Defense Fund, told the New York Times.

A copy of the draft decision as of Wednesday morning showed that much of the text was still in brackets—meaning variations in the language still needed to be voted on by the ministers who represent the 192 “parties” involved in the climate talks. But all signs pointed to a done deal.

With only a few hours left for negotiations before the ministers arrived, La Viña recalled, the draft text had grown to seven pages, an unworkable length for what is essentially a side agreement to the main climate change deal.

He said he had asked the negotiators (members of Drafting Committee 3, which he headed, under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action) to consider a leaner, minister-ready three-page draft in “one more round” instead, and in the end gained consensus.

The most controversial part of the proposed REDD deal involves the rights of indigenous peoples and forest dwellers.

Activists protest

Even as late as Wednesday, activists were protesting outside the Media Center in the Bella Center, chanting: “No rights, no REDD!” Corpuz, an Igorot and indigenous rights activist of long standing, helped smooth the discussion and generate a consensus.

In the special language of international diplomacy, however, the draft text remains a “non-agreement.” It doesn’t become an actual agreement until heads of government sign off on it, probably tomorrow.

Many issues unresolved

As the conference headed into the final stretch, delegates were disheartened that so many large and small issues remained unresolved, with prospects for a meaningful agreement receding.

“In these very hours, we are balancing between success and failure,” conference president Connie Hedegaard of Denmark said on Wednesday.

Success is possible, she said, “but I must also warn you: We can fail probably without anyone really wanting it so, but because we spent too much time on posturing, on repeating positions, on formalities.”

The rest of the 115 leaders were expected to arrive before Friday’s summit finale to sign a political outline of a global warming treaty that would set limits on carbon dioxide pollution by the United States, China, India as well as extending emissions targets for the 37 countries regulated under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Prodipto Ghosh, a member of the Indian delegation, said that the negotiations were “not going good” and that fundamental differences between rich and poor nations would be “difficult to bridge” by the end of the week.

Philippines with G-77

With a measly share in the global greenhouse gas emissions, the Philippines has cast its lot with the G-77 group of developing nations, including China.

But the Philippines has also come up with its own proposal to have “early and deep” cuts in carbon emissions.

Heherson Alvarez, the Philippine chief negotiator, said the proposal to cut emissions by 30 to 40 percent from 2013 to 2018 had gained momentum, securing the support of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

UN chief’s frustration

Ban said he was positive about a deal but also expressed frustration with the progress to date. “I’m afraid that negotiations have been too slow,” the UN chief said. “I think all the countries can and must do more.”

Any Copenhagen pact would be fleshed out next year in further talks, culminating in a treaty that would take effect from 2013.

As the proposed Copenhagen deal hung in the balance, world lawmakers proposed a political way out of the impasse.

Members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) met here Wednesday on the sidelines of the Conference of Parties at the Parliament House of Denmark to discuss legislating climate change responses around the globe.

Climate Change Act

The Philippines recently enacted the Climate Change Act authored by Sen. Loren Legarda, the only Asian leader asked to speak before the meeting on “politics of climate change legislation.”

Legarda, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction champion for climate change adaptation and risk reduction in the Asia-Pacific, called on parliamentarians for immediate and sustained action.