Obama backs Brazil-Norway forest protection plan

As Google debuts new deforestation tracking tool, president’s backing for REDD plan increases chances of forest protection deal

Deforestation

The chances of a deal being brokered at Copenhagen to protect the world’s forests increased dramatically last night when President Obama threw his weight behind a plan put forward jointly by Brazil and Norway.

In his first public pronouncement on the Copenhagen Summit since the start of the talks, Obama said he was “very impressed” with the Brazil-Norway proposal, adding that it “allows for effective monitoring and ensures that we are making progress in avoiding deforestation of the Amazon”.

Speaking following his acceptance of the Nobel peace prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Obama signaled that he was committed to brokering a deal next week to improve forest protection. “It’s probably the most cost-effective way for us to address the issue of climate change – having an effective set of mechanisms in place to avoid further deforestation and hopefully to plant new trees,” he said.

More than 20 different plans have been proposed in the Reduced Deforestation and Degradation (Redd) section of any Copenhagen Agreement. However, the Brazil-Norway proposals have emerged as a front-runner after a number of pilot schemes, part-funded by the Prince of Wales Rainforest Project, proved effective at limiting deforestation, successfully verifying that forests were being protected, and ensuring local communities benefit from the scheme.

The discussions around Redd represent one of the few areas of the summit where observers say rapid progress towards a deal is being made. However, there were signs of a setback yesterday when Brazil rejected an EU proposal for a binding target to cut the rate of deforestation 50 per cent by 2020, arguing that it would not sign up to any binding targets until it knew how much financial support will be made available by industrialised nations.

In what could prove a significant breakthrough for the Redd process, Google yesterday demonstrated a new prototype technology that enables online satellite observation of the Earth’s forests capable of measuring levels of deforestation.

One of the main causes of concern among industrialised nations is that the Redd initiative will struggle to ensure forests are adequately protected, meaning they could end up paying billions of dollars into forestry protection schemes only to see deforestation continue in the future.

However, Google’s satellite technology promises to provide a cost-effective way of ensuring forestry protection commitments are honoured.

“Being able to detect illegal logging activities faster can help support local law enforcement and prevent further deforestation from happening,” explained Rebecca Moore and Amy Luers of the internet giant’s philanthropic arm Google.org in a blog post.