Cancun Climate Conference - Forests in the spotlight

After the disappointment of climate talks at Copenhagen last year expectations from Cancun were mixed. While no one expected much, if any, progress on new global emissions reduction targets, the whole future of the United Nations Climate process was hanging in the balance - could the world pull together and look beyond national interests to tackle the climate crisis or not? What if any concrete outcomes would emerge from the talks? Could we start to fix some of the serious flaws in the Kyoto Protocol, particularly those relating to the protection of native forests as carbon stores?

Forests are vital to tackling climate change. Photo: Ern Mainka

For much of the two weeks in Cancun it looked like we were heading for another failure. One proposal would have allowed logging interests in rich countries like Australia to actually increase their emissions without having to account for them and provided little incentive to reduce emissions by protecting native forests. 

This proposal would have allowed an extra 500 million tonnes of Greenhouse Gas Emissions to be released into the atmosphere without penalty between 2012-2017. The ‘Truth in Targets’ campaign initiated by the Wilderness Society had a clear impact, with acknowledgement in the final agreement of the need to assess the impact of any new rules for forests in developed countries on their overall emissions reduction targets.

Fortunately these proposals were defeated through a strong campaign by a coalition of groups including the Wilderness Society , the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, International Youth Coalition, the Climate Action Network  and Avaaz, 

But much more will need to be done if we are to win this battle and ensure that native forest protection is actively encouraged through a new climate agreement.

In Cancun the world turned a corner. In 2011 we need to encourage all governments to take action at home and in the international arena that helps lead the world to a lasting climate solution.

Virginia Young and Peg Putt
(The Wilderness Society Climate team in Cancun)