ARLINGTON, VA — October 23, 2008 — The Nature Conservancy this week was appointed to serve on the governing panel of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) – joining more than a dozen countries from across the globe that will work together to develop the financial tools and incentives needed to make forest conservation a powerful tool against climate change. The Conservancy is the only non-governmental organization serving on the panel.
The appointment came during the FCPF’s first annual meeting in Washington DC. At the meeting policy leaders and government representatives from around the world came together to launch innovative programs and funding mechanisms that will help develop a credible global carbon credit market that recognizes forest protection.
Despite the world’s current financial crisis, FCPF members pledged more than $100 million to the Facility during this week’s inaugural meetings. With this funding, the FCPF will implement and evaluate pilot incentive programs, purchasing emissions reductions from developing countries that have taken action to reduce deforestation and forest degradation.
“It is heartening to know that despite the current financial situation, countries around the world understand that we cannot delay action on battling climate change,” said Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy. “Forest protection is one of the most cost-effective methods available to fight climate change. If we don’t take action now, climate change ultimately will have a much greater impact on the global economy and the natural resources we all depend upon for survival.”
The Nature Conservancy is a founding member of the FCPF, pledging $5 million to the partnership during the United Nations climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia last year.
As a member of the governing panel, The Nature Conservancy will lend its extensive experience in forest carbon projects and science to help the FCPF create the financial mechanisms and high-quality standards needed to help developing countries protect threatened forests and combat climate change.
“Right now, developing countries can generate more money from cutting down their forests than from keeping them standing,” said Tercek. “The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility will bring developed and industrialized countries together — along with forest communities, indigenous groups, the private sector and civil society — to establish a financial value for the carbon stored in standing forests.”
Also named to the governing board – known as the Participants Committee – were Australia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Guyana, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Switzerland the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.
The Nature Conservancy has nearly two decades of experience working to reduce carbon emissions through forest protection, leading forest carbon projects in six countries on more than 1.5 million acres of land. Its Noel Kempff project in Bolivia was the world’s first forest carbon reduction project to be verified by a third party based on internationally-recognized standards.
About 20 percent of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere each year comes from the destruction of forests – more than from all the planes, trains and automobiles in the world. In the next few years, scientists predict that developing countries will produce more climate-changing emissions than all industrialized nations combined – much of this due to the accelerating destruction of tropical forest resources.
But existing climate policies, including the Kyoto Protocol, do not recognize the protection of forests as a source for carbon emission reductions. So while developed nations can earn carbon credits for lowering their industrial emissions, developing nations cannot receive credits for reducing emissions from their largest source: deforestation. There is a growing consensus among world leaders and conservation organizations that credits earned through forest protection should be included in a global carbon trading market.
The Nature Conservancy supports a system of financial incentives and carbon credit markets that would allow developing nations to generate the funds needed to conserve forests, reduce emissions from all sources, protect biodiversity, improve local livelihoods and join the international fight against climate change.
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