Feedback and some clarifications regarding my earlier post on "why carbon trading is not the solution to the climate change crisis"

I received some positive feedback from my earlier post on the subject of carbon trading and why I believe that a future climate regime should avoid including that mechanism of financing any realistic improvements in the climate change crisis from a colleague in the sector. It was an engaging discussion and based on that I would want to offer a few clarifications.

1. In principle, I am not against the substance of "off-setting" schemes as long as they are not financed by carbon trading tools. This is clearly what I mean! The fact that you can pollute (release carbon into the atmosphere) somewhere are take actions in another place to capture the carbon (through improved agriculture technologies that enable the soil, crops or trees to capture more carbon than they usually will) or plant trees to capture the carbon is not that a bad idea. How you finance such a scheme of this off-setting is my problem, in which case I am totally against the idea of financing it through carbon trading i.e polluters trading money in exchange of carbon credits that is owned through any of the tools mentioned above in tropical forest countries. I am totally against it because of the reasons I gave in the earlier post. The second and equally important reason is that such a mechanism does not force radical shift in the way western economies behave to cut emissions. This is "business-as-usual" usual scenario and this does not solve the climate crisis. We are told by the IPCC that we need to cut emissions drastically if we are to avoid the catastrophe that awaits us as a human race. There is need to cut consumerism in the West, reduce our carbon dioxide emissions, shift our energy dependence on coal among others. The off-setting schemes as currently being pushed will only maintain the status-quo. Keep on polluting and plant trees or undertake among others agro, forestry based technologies in tropical countries to capture that carbon.

2. In principle I am also not against, any "off-setting" mechanism that helps farmers in Africa for instance in practicing new technologies that helps to improve their cocoa yields and also capture carbon (for instance through shade-tolerant cocoa agroforestry technologies). It will improve their yields, help to create forest resources and obviously improve their livelihoods.I am an Agroforester by training so I am aware of the benefits of such a scheme. I am totally against, rewarding the farmers through the carbon emissions captured by these agroforestry technologies through carbon trading.

3.I am totally in favour of a fund-based mechanism for rewarding the efforts of communities, farmers and tropical forest governments for capturing excess carbon in the atmosphere. The technicalities of how such a fund should be run to ensure that farmers and governments who invest in such carbon capturing technologies are rewarded should be in the domain of any international climate change mitigation regime discussions.

4. In conclusion, I reiterate that I am not in support of any climate change mitigation effort (in a future global climate change regime) that focuses on using carbon trading as a tool to achieve an off-set scheme. The West must do more to cut emissions, we must also encourage tropical countries and their communities to invest in improved farming technologies, agroforestry, and forest mitigation technologies that ensures sustainability and helps to reduce the global carbon dioxide levels. Such investments should be rewarded through a fund-based mechanism and not carbon trading. I understand what the benefits are of one over the other.

I hope this provides some clarifications. And of course this is an on-going debate at the international level. And this is my take on some of the issues.

Is Ghana's FLEGT VPA grinding to a halt...Introduction

In a 7-part series, I will be bringing you closer to the contents of my paper with the title: "Is Ghana's FLEGT VPA grinding to a halt and failing to achieve improvement in forest governance". Today, I will deal with the introduction and follow it subsequently with details of the challenges that the sector still face and then conclude with some proposals on the way forward. I have already provided the summary to this paper in an earlier post on my blog. I will at the end provide a link to where you can access the full paper. So lets get into the details now!

1         Introduction

1.1      Ghana’s forest sector

Forests remain important in the socio-economic sectors of Ghana. Locally, forests remain a sacred place of connection for communities for spiritual and cultural purposes. Forests provide raw materials for building and are an important source of food for forest fringe communities. It offers employment, income and supports several hundreds of rural livelihoods. At the national level, the forest sector is estimated to contribute 4% to the GDP. However, Ghana’s forest cover has reduced from an estimated 8.6 million ha to 1.6 million ha since the turn of the century. The timber industry export provided 10% of foreign exchange for the country between 1990 and 2000 which declined to 8.1% in 2005 and to 1.3% in 2011. The forest sector provides direct employment for more than 270,000 people (both formal and informal sectors) and livelihood to around 650,000[1] people (indirect employment/income). Chainsaw milling (CSM)’s contribution to the domestic timber market is estimated at US $554 million (GHc 280 million)[2] while the formal sector in terms of export of timber provides around US $180 million (between 2009 and 2010)[3]. The EU remains an important export destination of Ghana’s timber[4].  

1.2      Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT)

In 2009 Ghana and the European Union ratified a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) to regulate the trade in timber and timber products within the framework of the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance, Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. On the demand side, significant progress has been made with the coming into force of the EU’s Timber Regulation (EUTR) in March 2013, which prohibits the import of illegal timber and places a responsibility on importers to check their suppliers to ensure that they purchase legal timber. Penalties are determined by individual EU countries but could be up to two years imprisonment or a 50,000 EURO fine[5]. Even though the responsibility of proof of illegality rests with the importing companies in the EU, there is the risk of blacklisting of exporting companies in Ghana when it is proven that their timber is exploited in violation of the Ghanaian laws once the VPA comes into force. Under the EUTR, importing companies have the responsibility to ensure due diligence is undertaken on all timber products imported and demonstrate measures to mitigate any risks involved with their trade. On the supply side, the VPA is to ensure that a FLEGT licence covers consignment of shipment of timber to the EU proving its legality with the country’s laws on forestry. As will be shown in the subsequent paragraphs it is very likely that most of Ghana’s exported timber does not currently meet the legality definition of the VPA because necessary legal reforms in the sector has not yet been achieved. The VPA is also aimed at assisting timber producing countries to improve governance in the forest sector in return for guaranteed market access for timber into the EU. The Ghana VPA includes a wide range of necessary policy and legal reforms that will promote transparency, accountability and good governance[6]. Since the VPA came into force in 2009, most activities have focused on how to put technical specifications of the Legality Assurance System (LAS) in place and to pilot the Wood Tracking System (WTS) which is part of the LAS to ensure traceability of timber along the value chain from the forest of origin to the port of export. Since the pilot system was completed in 2012, little progress has been made with regards to scaling it up at the national level.

1.3      Governance reforms envisaged by the VPA

The promised governance improvement integrated in the VPA and towards improved transparency and accountability is not happening. The fundamental challenges are deepening rather than abating. Ghana is moving at a snail’s pace with the VPA implementation and this threatens the credibility of the VPA process, the created momentum and its appropriateness to improve forest governance. This paper highlights the persisting challenges in the forest sector and explains why there is the need for CSOs to put pressure on government and the EU to move forward on them or risk plunging the whole FLEGT VPA into a credibility crisis.  The paper further aims to inform the general public on the remaining challenges in order to galvanise stakeholder support to demand the necessary governance reform. The focus of this paper is on the governance reform aspects of the VPA that is necessary to ensure accountability, transparency and coordination of capacity for participation. It will indicate the progress made since the VPA was ratified in 2009 and then conclude by providing some recommendations on the way forward.

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[1] This represents 2.6% of the population of the country

[2] GHc is Ghana cedis (national currency for Ghana). Using an exchange rate of GHc 1 to $ 1.98 at the time of writing the paper

[3] This data is sourced from the Ghana government’s Forest Investment Plan. The Plan is the government’s proposal for funding from the Forest Investment Program of the Climate Investment Fund run by World Bank (WB), African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) 

[4] According to the June 2013 edition of the TIDD of Forestry Commission’s report on the trade and export performance of the industry, Europe emerged as the major destination for Ghana’s wood products export during Jan-June 2013. Export to various European countries in Jan- June 2013 amounted to Euro 29.76million (48.48%) from a volume of about 56,700m3 (41.28%). Report available on http://www.fcghana.org/assets/file/Publications/Industry_Trade/Export_Reports/year%202013/June_2013.pdf

[5] Information is sourced from a recently published study of Global Witness that alleges massive abuse of Ghana’s timber permits systems and alarms of high-risk coming from Ghana. Available on http://www.globalwitness.org/ghanapermits

[6] Press release from the first (1^st) Joint Monitoring and Review Mechanism (JMRM) of the Ghana-EU VPA published on January 29, 2010. Available at the Forestry Commission website: www.fcghana.org

Is Ghana's FLEGT VPA grinding to a halt and failing to achieve improvement in forest governance?

A new paper from Kingsley Bekoe Ansah (to be published soon). Just a preview of the abstract.

Summary

Even though forests remain important in the socio-economic sectors of Ghana, they are declining at an alarming rate (approximately 135, 000 ha annually)[1]. As a result their contribution of providing raw materials, employment, income and support for rural livelihoods is under threat. In 2009, Ghana ratified a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) to halt deforestation and improve governance in the forest sector by regulating the trade in timber and timber products into the EU market. According to the VPA, Ghana is expected to reform the policy and legislative framework of the forest sector to improve governance. Ghana is also expected to install a Legality Assurance System (LAS) to monitor and verify the legality of processed timber for domestic and international markets. Five years since the VPA was ratified, the governance challenges facing the forestry sector persists and in some cases it has even worsened. Overexploitation of timber resources is continuing at alarming rates fuelled in part by the Chainsaw Milling (CSM). There is still unclear and unfair access and benefit sharing of naturally occurring trees on farmlands. Government’s abuse of the permits regime (especially salvage permits) is on the rise. Concession leases have not been converted to Timber Utilization Contracts (TUCs) as mandated by law and the VPA. There is inadequate accountability, transparency and disclosure of information on forestry operations.  Stumpage fees have not been revised since 2004 as stipulated by law[2] resulting in millions of US dollars loss in revenue and high social cost in timber exploitation.  And finally, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) dynamics have changed resulting in decreased momentum and involvement in the implementation phase of the VPA. These challenges clearly threaten the ability of the VPA to live up to the expectation of improving forest governance in the sector, halting trade in illegal timber and improving sustainable forest management.

There is urgency for all stakeholders to work towards achieving the objectives of the VPA. Government should stop the rhetoric and actually demonstrate commitment to governance reform by reviewing and enforcing new stumpage fees and convert all leases to TUCs. Parliament should exercise its oversight responsibility by investigating the administrative abuse of the permits regime (especially the salvage permits) by government, recommend and implement corrective measures. CSOs should re-organize and re-strategize to maximize the effect of their seat at the table and influence the process to ensure reforms respond to the objectives of the VPA. CSOs need to provide workable and credible proposals and alternatives on the way forward. They need to hold the government accountable to all forest stakeholders. The EU and donors of the forestry sector need to put pressure on government to ensure that governance reforms are implemented. The implementation of governance reforms should therefore be strictly tied to funding and that release of funding is tied with achievement of governance reform targets set. A reformed land and tree tenure regime that fairly and equitably shares the benefits from tree exploitations and rewards farmers for nurturing trees on their farms should be pursued vigorously by the government and all actors in the sector.  

In conclusion, there is hope for the Ghana VPA to achieve its objective of ensuring improvements in transparency, accountability and good governance in the forest sector.  However all stakeholders must rise to the challenge and show the same level of commitment, enthusiasm, optimism and good will that characterised the negotiation process.

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[1] Data is obtained from the Ghana government Forest Investment Plan. Available at www.fcghana.org

[2] The Timber Resources Management (Amendment) Regulation (2003), LI 1721 provides for timber right holders to pay stumpage fees which “shall be reviewed to reflect market demand and inventory levels of timber species”.

Carbon trading is not the solution to the climate change crises

There is a universal agreement on the problem of climate change (even though there are still scepticism by a few on the cause of the problem). Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the major cause. We (as humans) need to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we push into the atmosphere and design solutions to capture the excess already in the system. But is carbon offsetting the solution? Carbon off-setting can be explained simply as polluting (continuing to emit carbon in mostly the Global North) and planting trees in another place in the Global South (to capture this carbon that is emitted). With this arrangement industries in the Global North can continue to increase production and expand and increase consumerism while they buy the credit for this pollution in the Global South (using their forests as collateral). Carbon trading as it is called has potential to displace several thousands of local people in tropical countries increasing land grabbing and further entrenching poverty. This is another attempt by "carbon cowboys" to commodify forests and trade it for their selfish, parochial interests. This is a bad solution to the problem (as I also explained to David Shukman of the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8139351.stm). Tropical countries need to be fully compensated (and here I mean ensuring that there is no elite capture in the tropical countries) for keeping their forests and using it in a sustainable manner that improves their livelihoods. This means that there is "wise use of forests and sustainable forestry practices" and NOT "no use" of forests. The public, civil society organizations must rise up against attempts by the World Bank and the likes to go that dangerous roading of carbon trading.