Egypt, S.Arabia step up trade ties through coordination council talks    Egypt reviews progress on $200m World Bank-funded waste management hub    Egypt urges Israel to accept Gaza deal amid intensifying fighting    SCZONE showcases investment opportunities to eight Japanese companies    Egypt, ADIB explore strategic partnership in digital healthcare, investment    SCZONE, Tokyo Metropolitan Government sign MoU on green hydrogen cooperation    Egypt welcomes international efforts for peace in Ukraine    Al-Sisi, Macron reaffirm strategic partnership, coordinate on Gaza crisis    Contact Reports Strong 1H-2025 on Financing, Insurance Gains    Egypt, India's BDR Group in talks to establish biologics, cancer drug facility    AUC graduates first cohort of film industry business certificate    Egyptian pound down vs. US dollar at Monday's close – CBE    Egypt's FM, Palestinian PM visit Rafah crossing to review Gaza aid    Egypt prepares unified stance ahead of COP30 in Brazil    Egypt recovers collection of ancient artefacts from Netherlands    Egypt harvests 315,000 cubic metres of rainwater in Sinai as part of flash flood protection measures    Egypt, Namibia explore closer pharmaceutical cooperation    Fitch Ratings: ASEAN Islamic finance set to surpass $1t by 2026-end    Renowned Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim dies at 88    Egyptian, Ugandan Presidents open business forum to boost trade    Al-Sisi says any party thinking Egypt will neglect water rights is 'completely mistaken'    Egypt's Sisi warns against unilateral Nile measures, reaffirms Egypt's water security stance    Egypt's Sisi, Uganda's Museveni discuss boosting ties    Egypt, Huawei explore healthcare digital transformation cooperation    Egypt's Sisi, Sudan's Idris discuss strategic ties, stability    Egypt to inaugurate Grand Egyptian Museum on 1 November    Greco-Roman rock-cut tombs unearthed in Egypt's Aswan    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Seeing REDD on climate change
Published in Daily News Egypt on 19 - 12 - 2010

CANCÚN: The official communiqué from the Cancún climate-change conference cannot disguise the fact that there will be no successor to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires at the end of 2012. Japan, among others, has withdrawn its support for efforts simply to extend the Kyoto treaty.
This sounds like bad news, because it means that there will be no international price on carbon, and, without a market price, it is difficult to see how the reduction of carbon emissions can be efficiently organized. But appearances can be deceiving.
Even as the top-down approach to tackling climate change is breaking down, a new bottom-up approach is emerging. It holds out better prospects for success than the cumbersome United Nations negotiations.
Instead of a single price for carbon, this bottom-up approach is likely to produce a multiplicity of prices for carbon emissions. This is more appropriate to the task of reducing carbon emissions than a single price, because there is a multiplicity of sectors and methods, each of which produces a different cost curve.
The market price of anything is always equal to the marginal cost. When there is a single price, all the various cost curves are merged into one and low-cost projects enjoy large rents. This makes the cost of reducing carbon emissions much larger than it needs to be.
This was amply demonstrated by the working of the Kyoto Protocol in practice. The carbon-trading scheme that it established gave rise to many abuses. For example, formerly communist countries earned emission credits at zero cost on the heavy industries that they had to shut down and reaped windfall profits by selling them. So the demise of the Kyoto Protocol will be no great loss.
The same applies to the protracted negotiations between developed and developing nations. The developed nations promised to pay reparations for their past sins at the Rio de Janeiro summit in 1992 but kept deferring their obligations by negotiating. Meanwhile, conditions changed with the passage of time: China, following decades of booming growth, replaced the United States as the largest emitter.
The negotiations have taken on an increasingly unreal air. Currently, the dispute revolves around how governments will deliver $100 billion annually by 2020 to help developing countries confront climate change, given that even the $10 billion Fast Track Fund cannot be cobbled together without using smoke and mirrors. By failing to make any progress beyond keeping the talks alive, the Cancún summit has given the impression that nothing is happening, and that the situation is hopeless.
That is not the case. Individual countries like Germany are making binding unilateral commitments that are not conditional on what other countries do, and “coalitions of the willing” are being formed to tackle particular sectors. The REDD+ partnership (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), an effort to create financial value for the carbon stored in forests, is the prime example here. Indeed, the greatest progress is now being made where the problem is the most urgent: it is much easier to preserve forests than to restore them.
The case of Indonesia deserves special attention. Indonesia has become the third largest polluter in the world, after China and the US, because much of its forest grows on peatlands. When the trees are cut and peatlands drained, the carbon accumulated over millennia is exposed and oxidized — often in the form of fires that envelope neighboring Singapore and Malaysia in smoke.
Today, half of Indonesia's peatlands remain intact; if they were exposed, emissions would double. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is determined to prevent this, and he has received financial support for his efforts from Norway. Their partnership has already been joined by Australia, and others will soon follow.
The partnership is path-breaking in several ways. Yudhoyono is introducing a moratorium on the exploitation of peatlands and virgin forests. A REDD+ agency will be charged with treating rain forests as a natural resource that is to be preserved and restored rather than exploited and destroyed. This will also transform governance and the delivery of official development assistance (ODA).
The REDD+ agency will have a domestic governing board that will coordinate the activities of all the governmental units concerned with rain forests, and an international board that will authorize and monitor the spending of ODA funds. This means that ODA will support home-grown institutions instead of administering projects introduced from the outside.
These efforts can serve as a prototype for assisting other countries such as Guyana, where the current forest-preservation scheme does not work so well. Eventually, it should lead to the establishment of a global fund for rain forests and agricultural adaptation because the benefits of carbon abatement accrue to mankind as a whole, not to individual countries. The global fund would introduce two prices: one for carbon saving by restoring forests and one for avoiding carbon emissions by preserving them.
This in turn sets an example for other sectors. In this way, carbon pricing will be introduced and international cooperation established from the bottom up, on a sectoral basis rooted in demonstrated results.
Thus, despite the widespread impression that the climate-change agenda has stalled, there are grounds for hope. But realizing that hope requires keeping pace with global warming, and that means speeding up the process of putting a price — or prices — on carbon emissions.
George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Institute. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with Project Syndicate, www.project-syndicate.org.


Clic here to read the story from its source.