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http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=12827
Since the Kyoto Protocol entered into force on 16 February, the Brazilian government
has begun approving authorizations for company and project participation in clean
development mechanisms (CDMs). Authorized companies and projects will then be
able to sell carbon gas credits to companies in developed countries that are trying to
meet the Kyoto Protocol demands for reducing green house gas emissions.
The Protocol stipulates that developed countries are to reduce green house gas
emissions by 5 per cent, relative to 1990 levels, by a time window set between 2008
and 2012.
The Rio de Janeiro stock exchange will now serve as a platform for the Latin
American market now operational between approved Brazilian CDMs and companies
in developed countries that choose to purchase carbon credits from Brazil.
“In 21 years, each CDM project in Brazil could reduce emissions by 14 million
tonnes,” Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology Chief Coordinator of
Research in Global Change, José Miguel, said in a recent interview with Brazilian
news service Agencia Brasil.
An increase in CDMs in Brazil would be good for development, Miguel said, because
these projects improve living standards. It is hoped they will create jobs and
encourage renewable energy generation in Brazil. This year alone, Miguel expects
some 30 projects to be approved.
The multi-step process of CDM approval will take time, however. The project
identification documentation must first be submitted and validated. Next, the
Brazilian Inter-Ministerial Climate Change Commission must approve it. This step
represents a significant bottleneck, as the commission has many projects in the
pipeline. Once approved, the project must get a stamp of approval from the United
Nations Executive Board before receiving CDM authorization.
The first CDM project approved in Brazil, called Nova Gerar, is located in Nova
Iguacu, Rio de Janeiro. It is a gas-to-energy project located at a sanitary landfill near
the mouth of Rio’s Guanabara Bay. The landfill has the capacity to produce 18
million cubic meters of natural gas and receives 850,000 tonnes of domestic solid
waste per year. At maximum gas production, project developers expect the electricity
produced to reach some 40 megawatts of power.
A similar project called Vega Bahia has also been approved. Vega Bahia will
undertake to run a gas-to-energy project on the landfill that serves Salvador, Bahia.
“But both India and China have the potential to dwarf Latin America completely,”
Business News Americas Energy Features Editor Karl Royce, told ISN Security
Watch, adding that, “high oil and gas prices may contribute to the development of the
carbon credit markets, but it’s very much uncharted territory.”
Meanwhile, the World Bank reports that carbon sequestration projects submitted by
Asian countries reached 51 per cent of total projects in 2003, up from 21 per cent in
2002. Conversely, in Latin America, the percentage of total projects fell from 40 to 27
per cent during the same time period.
Nevertheless, Brazilian observers are optimistic that a multi-billion dollar market may
be fostered in Latin America.
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/01/15/why-is-brazil-so-interested-in-carbon-
credits-for-forests-in-exhaustion/
On the final day in Poznan, a dispute took place between Saudi Arabia and Brazil
over the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Saudi Arabia wants carbon capture
and storage to be included in the CDM. Brazil wants carbon credits for “forests in
exhaustion”. Saudi Arabia’s motivation is obvious. It wants to continue extracting and
selling oil. But what is Brazil’s motivation? And what, exactly, are “forests in
exhaustion”?
At around 22:00 on 12 December 2008, the monitor screens in the Poznan conference
centre announced that the UNFCCC Plenary would be restarting at 22:15. While we
were waiting for the delegates to file in, someone handed me a copy of a draft
negotiating text on the CDM.
The start of the closing Plenary Session, it turns out, had been delayed by an argument
between Saudi Arabia and Brazil during negotiations about the CDM which took
place behind closed doors. The compromise was a request to the CDM’s Executive
Board to assess both proposals. But there are serious problems with including both
carbon capture and storage and “forests in exhaustion” in the CDM. Even if the
techniques of carbon capture and storage could be developed so that it is 100 per cent
sure that the carbon will not leak back into the atmosphere, including carbon capture
and storage in the CDM would do two things. First, it would create a subsidy for oil
extraction, meaning that every last drop of oil is likely to be extracted, no matter what
the environmental and social costs. Second, by trading carbon credits, it would allow
pollution to continue elsewhere, guaranteeing that there is no overall reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions.
I admit that I’d never heard of “forests in exhaustion”. But neither had anyone else,
outside the Brazilian delegation, it seems. When I googled the phrase a few days after
the Poznan meeting, there were no hits. Now there are four — all related to the last
minute CDM discussions at Poznan. I asked one of the government delegates, who
explained that Brazil is asking for carbon credits for industrial tree plantations that
have over several rotations sucked so much water and nutrients out of the soil that the
trees will no longer grow fast enough for the plantation to be managed as a
commercial venture. In other words, these “forests in exhaustion” are abandoned
plantations, not forests.
At a side event about the Amazon Fund the previous day, Brazil’s Minister of
Environment, Carlos Minc, said that its proposals for reducing the rate of
deforestation in the Amazon will not create any carbon credits or rights to emissions.
But under its proposals for the CDM, Brazil does want carbon credits from abandoned
industrial tree plantations.
As REDD-Monitor has previously pointed out, the UNFCCC forest definition fails to
differentiate between forests and plantations. Meanwhile, Brazil’s government
representatives talk about reducing the rate of “net deforestation” — meaning that
old-growth forests could be clearcut, replaced by soya or sugar plantations and an
equivalent area planted with monoculture tree plantations. With the current definition
of forests, the UNFCCC would not notice the difference.
Brazil already has two extremely controversial industrial tree plantation projects
which are attempting to register under the CDM in order to claim carbon credits for
their operations. One is run by Plantar and the other by Valourec & Mannesmann. The
companies claim that these vast areas of eucalyptus plantations are reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by producing charcoal for the steel industry. The argument
runs that if it did not use charcoal from eucalyptus plantations, then the steel industry
would use coal. Neither of these plantation companies is currently registered with the
CDM, although both have had applications underway for several years.
Plantar and V&M both inflict massive social and environmental impacts on the local
communities living near the plantations. In 2002, World Rainforest Movement
produced a report which documents these impacts in detail. WRM’s researchers noted
“an atmosphere of repression and fear” and did not name the people interviewed in
their report. They emphasised their “concern over the fear these interviewees feel”.
In 2006, journalist Heidi Bachram wrote in Red Pepper magazine that when she
visited the V&M plantations, a villager told her that “The threat to workers and
people here is great. Shots have been fired on people by the armed guards. They feel
prisoners within their own lands.” Also in 2006, a local community submitted an
international complaint, pointing out that the destruction of the native cerrado
(savannah) vegetation has left the community without access to firewood and fruits
and has led to the drying up of the Cana Brava River. V&M’s response was to
increase the pressure on the community.
In February 2007, armed guards employed by V&M shot and killed Antonio Joaquim
dos Santos in front of his 16 year-old daughter. He was collecting firewood.
Although these companies are managing industrial tree plantations and not forests, the
examples of Plantar and V&M give a warning message about the dangers of REDD.
Both companies prevent local people from entering the plantations to gather
fuelwood. By increasing the value of forests to corporations and states there is a real
danger that REDD will lead to similar situations with armed guards patrolling forests
to protect their carbon investments from local communities.
One response to this argument is that REDD is developing standards, which are to be
monitored by independent third-party assessors. But when dos Santos was shot,
V&M’s plantations were certified. And not under any old rubber stamp certification
scheme. V&M’s plantations were certified under what is widely regarded as the best
forestry certification system in the world: the Forest Stewardship Council. FSC
ignored calls from Brazilian NGOs to withdraw the certificate. After the shooting,
V&M announced a “voluntary decision to leave FSC”. This has, apparently, made no
difference to V&M’s CDM registration process.
Tags: Carbon Credits, CDM, Forest definition, FSC, Poznan | Category: Brazil |
1 comment to Why is Brazil so interested in carbon credits for
“forests in exhaustion”?
• Chris Lang
A colleague suggested that I should clarify that “both V&M and Plantar are
CDM registered for the more efficient charcoal ovens component of their
CDM applications, they just never succeeded to date to get the plantations part
registered.”
Date: 10-Apr-06
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Denise Luna
Carbon credits are a market mechanism set up by the Kyoto protocol, which aims to
reduce the emission of gases linked to global warming. Industries in developed
countries have limits on the carbon dioxide (CO2) they can emit.
If they exceed them they must pay a fine or buy allowances from companies that
undershoot their targets. Being a developing country, Brazil is exempt from Kyoto
targets for emission reductions and the nation's companies can sell carbon credits to
foreign companies that exceed their caps.
The main beneficiaries of this market are companies with projects that reduce
pollution emissions, such as landfill sites, biodiesel or ethanol production, and
reforestation.
In total, the Biogas project, which is a partnership with Sao Paulo mayor's office,
should generate 8 million tonnes in carbon credits until 2012, which will be
negotiated later.
The project receives half of all waste in South America's biggest megalopolis, Sao
Paulo, or about 80,000 tonnes per day, and uses the methane gas from the waste to
generate 22 megawatts of electric power.
"That is the biggest contract signed so far in the world. We've been negotiating since
2004 and now we got U.N auditing and approval," Marcelo Junqueira, Econergy's
vice president for transactions, told Reuters.
He would not reveal the value of the deal, saying only it was above 15 euros per
tonne, which is normally paid in the world for deals of up to 500,000 tonnes.
"No project that size has carbon credits that already have been generated, which
means they are for immediate delivery," Junqueira said.
Econergy said the world carbon credit market registered deals worth 9.4 billion euros
last year, up sharply from only 377 million euros in 2004.
Out of 207 carbon credit projects registered by the United Nations, 45 are Brazilian
and 21 are managed by Econergy. These include a wind-powered electricity
generation park and power projects based on sugar cane bagasse.
Last year, Rio de Janeiro's Commodities and Futures Exchange started trading in the
credits.
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/China--India-and-Brazil-ahead-in-carbon-
credits/551570/
BRIC PLUS
While China, India and Brazil heads the list of countries earning the maximum carbon
credits, Russia is nowhere in the picture with its contribution limited to a few joint
investment projects commissioned recently. Most recent numbers show that there are
4,782 CDM projects in the pipeline, of which 1,915 are registered, 2,590 are under
validation and 277 are still registration requests. And so far, only about 605 of the
registered projects have issued 355 million CER credits where each CER is equal to 1
tonne of carbon dioxide.
China holds the maximum share with 1,895 CDM projects, or 39.6% of those in the
pipeline, followed by India with 1,207, or 25.2% in the pipeline. Brazil, with 347
projects, accounts for 7.3%. The fourth major contender is Mexico with 162 projects
and a 3.4% share.
The total emission reduction potential of the 4,782 projects is 661 million CER credits
and this is expected to go up to 2,820 million CER credits by 2012. The 1,895
Chinese projects currently have an emission reduction potential of 371 million CER
credits that will increase to 1,544 million credits by 2012, accounting for 54.8% of the
global share.
India comes next with the 1,207 projects, having an emission reduction potential of
112 million CER credits that will go up to 454 million CER credits which is only
16.1% of the total. Brazil’s current contribution to the emission reduction potential
from its 347 projects in the pipeline is 30 million CER credits that will move up to
171 million credits by 2012, accounting for 6.1% of the global potential.
One highlight of the CDM projects in the BRIC countries is the disparity in the
number of CDM projects and the emission reduction potential. While China has a
39.6% share of projects, its emission reduction potential is expected to be...
http://www.iflr1000.com/LegislationGuide/170/Carbon-credits-are-not-securities.html
The Brazilian Securities Commission (CVM) has recently announced its position in
connection with the so-called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and the
investment products derived from them, as well as on the possibility of their
acquisition by investment funds and the ways of financing projects to generate CERs
through capital market transactions.
The communication covers the following: (i) the reasons why CERs (commonly
called carbon credits) should not be considered securities; (ii) the nature of some
financial products derived from carbon credits, which, depending on their
characteristics, can be considered securities; and (iii) the use of structures regulated
by the CVM in the secondary market or to finance projects intended to generate
carbon credits.
Carbon credits
Carbon credits are instruments issued by an entity linked to the United Nations that
vouches for the non-emission of a certain quantity of greenhouse gases (which
contribute to global warming). These instruments were conceived as part of the Kyoto
Protocol, which took effect in 2005, by means of which greenhouse gas emission
targets were established for developed countries between 2008 and 2012.
The so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a procedure created under the
Kyoto Protocol to permit developing countries to participate in the joint effort to
prevent global warming, allows for the certification of projects to reduce emissions by
entities in those countries and for the subsequent sale of the resulting CERs generated
(according to certain methodologies and procedures). The CERs acquired can then be
used by companies in developed countries to help them achieve their reduction
targets.
In the CVM's view, the CDM permitted: (i) the creation of a type of asset that can be
transferred; (ii) the definition of potential venues for trading these assets; and (iii) the
establishment of an effective secondary market for carbon credits, with the
emergence, for example, of specialised intermediaries.
Therefore, and since they are a relatively new type of financial instrument, the
definition of their legal nature became essential for purposes of formulating their
regulatory framework in Brazil.
According to the CVM, carbon credits cannot be classified as securities, both because
they do not have the nature of a derivative instrument and do not fit under the concept
of a collective investment agreement, the two categories of securities with which they
are commonly identified.
According to the CVM, carbon credits are redeemable instruments, in the sense that
they can be transformed into a determined type of concrete economic advantage. In
this sense, they cannot be considered to be derivatives, because they do not derive
from any underlying instrument.
(iv) that result from the efforts of the entrepreneur or other parties rather than the
investors themselves, because they are by definition passive in relation to the
production of the results.
Since carbon credits: (i) are issued as a result of a specific procedure, duly certified by
entities with authority to do so; (ii) once issued are no longer linked to the entity that
implemented the corresponding emission reduction project, thus becoming mutually
fungible; and (iii) are offered essentially by means of private placements, investors
would gain little or no benefit if the CVM held it has authority to regulate them as
securities.
The issuance of carbon credits already counts with sufficient procedures for
validation, certification and control, so they do not need a specific regulatory regime.
Nevertheless, other products related to CERs, if they fit under the definition of
securities, may be subject to regulation by the CVM.
Carbon credits, even though they are not characterised as securities, can be classified
as financial assets and as such may be acquired by investment funds.
However, according to the CVM, carbon credits must be considered as assets issued
abroad, making it necessary to satisfy one of the following requirements for their
acquisition by the fund: (i) be listed for trading on an exchange or registered in a
system duly authorised in the country of origin, supervised by a recognised local
authority; or (ii) have their existence assured by the fund's custodial institution.
According to the CVM, the Brazilian market already has instruments able to finance
projects associated with the generation of CERs, which includes the so-called private-
equity investment funds. It is also possible to use non-standardised receivables
investment funds and real-estate investment funds to finance or structure projects with
potential to generate carbon credits.
The CVM, however, recognised that there is a constant need to analyse proposals to
create new project financing mechanisms because of the continuous development of
the country's financial and capital markets.
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?
articleID=1744
The UN’s REDD initiative is currently drafting plans for an international payment
system to fund forest conservation in developing countries from 2013. Negotiations
are advancing slowly, however, as with most aspects of a new global climate change
agreement that was to be concluded at Copenhagen next month.
The Brazilian government has set ambitious targets to cut national carbon emissions
from industry and land use as its contribution to the UN negotiating process. And the
overall emissions reductions target relies heavily on the contribution from the forest
sector. Gazani says that carbon credits from protecting standing forests would make
the target easier to achieve.
Gazani says that Brazil should consider the forest carbon opportunities from the
existing voluntary carbon market as well as any emerging UN regulated market. The
voluntary market is currently providing direction to the design of a huge potential US
market in REDD carbon credit offsets, one of the underpinnings of cap and trade laws
being debated currently in Congress.
The basis of Gazani’s estimates were not revealed but at industry ballpark estimates
of $5 per tonne for REDD carbon credits, it is hard to see how the forecasts billions
could be achieved, even if building up to those levels over time. It would require 1.6
billion tonnes of avoided carbon emissions to generate $8 billion in credits, equating
to many millions of square kilometers saved from clearing every year. Amazon
deforestation was 7000 square kilometres in 2008-09, down from 13,000, according to
official figures.
A slowing in deforestation in Brazil reduces the potential size of REDD payments by
lowering the national deforestation baseline against which emission savings would
probably be calculated.
Related stories:
Brazil cuts deforestation, sets emissions target
Land-based offsets stay central to US climate bill
REDD & Copenhagen: The state of play
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=at0BYn3fpSpU
Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil, whose Amazonia rainforest is the biggest in the world,
wants a new climate agreement to limit the use of forests to slow global warming,
putting a crimp on investors hoping to create carbon credits from trees.
South America’s largest economy will make the forestry proposal at next week’s
climate summit in Copenhagen, where about 190 countries are trying to establish new
reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said.
Brazil will support a United Nations plan to save trees provided industrialized nations
agree to use a maximum of 10 percent of their emissions targets to invest in forest
projects, Minc told reporters. Otherwise, richer countries may overuse the program at
the expense of making carbon cuts at their own factories and power plants, he said.
“After five rounds of negotiations with the governors from the Amazon, we decided
to incorporate REDD in our national proposal but under certain conditions,” the
minister said yesterday in Brasilia, using the initials for the UN’s “reducing emissions
from deforestation and degradation” plan.
Brazilian leaders may even wind up keeping Latin America’s most populous nation
largely out of the carbon market. Ecuador, Bolivia and Costa Rica -- and not Brazil --
may generate the most carbon credits for participants, carbon market analyst Aimie
Parpia said yesterday in an interview from London.
“Even though Brazil has the highest physical potential, it always looked unlikely that
it will see much project activity,” Parpia said. That’s because the nation didn’t want to
join a forest-protection market for credits. “Today’s announcement suggests that that
they may be softening their stance.”
Amazon Deforestation
Brazil, with one-third of the world’s tropical forest cover, said last month it would
offer to reduce its emissions by 38 percent to 42 percent from current projections for
2020. Slowing deforestation in the Amazon would generate about half of that
reduction, it said.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide, the main man-made gas scientists blame for global
warming. Removing forests to create pasture or room for mining projects or homes
adds to the greenhouse effect that helps warm the planet.
Without Brazil, fewer credits will be offered to utilities such as American Electric
Power Co. and PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffett’sBerkshire Hathaway Inc.,
under the plan being negotiated at the climate summit in Copenhagen this month.
California to Bolivia
The Nature Conservancy has worked for a decade with American Electric, BP Plc and
PacifiCorp, which owns seven hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in Oregon
and California, to create credits from forests in Bolivia.
The group spent about $11 million to buy out logging concessions, pay for monitoring
and enforcement of the ban on logging, and help Bolivians to adapt their use of the
forest.
Nations with tropical forests will need $10 billion to $40 billion in annual incentives
not to turn their forests over to timber and agriculture industries, New Zealand said in
a proposal to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Bonn-based
supervisor of climate-protection treaties.
Preserving Trees
Under the Brazilian plan, only one-tenth of the gas reductions assigned to a developed
country under any new climate accord could be covered by preserving trees,.
“If the target is a 30 percent emissions reduction, we propose a limit of 3 percent for
the purchase of compensatory REDD credits,” Minc said.
The UN-sponsored REDD plan, which would reward investors in forest preservation
with either aid or tradable carbon credits, will be debated by envoys from about 190
nations in the Danish capital at the negotiations starting Dec. 7.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091126-706293.html
SAO PAULO (Dow Jones)--Brazilian food company Sadia said Thursday that it has
been accepted to be a part of the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism
project, which will allow the company to sell carbon credits next year.
"We are very interested in entering this market and are now starting to account for,
and accumulate carbon credits to sell next year," said Sadia CEO Jose Julio Cardoso
de Lucena.
Sadia's four-year-old hog farm program called 3S qualified for the UN project, which
are the only projects that form part of the international carbon trading system set in
motion by the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions in to the atmosphere.
Polluting industries can buy carbon credits from nonpolluting companies on the open
market on exchanges like the Chicago and European Climate Exchange.
Sadia carbon credits will are UN Certified Emission Reduction tradable credits, the
first for a Brazilian food company.
CEO Lucena did not say just how much the company expects to generate in revenue
from carbon trading.
Sadia is a subsidiary of Perdigao (PDA). The two companies merged this year to form
BRF Brasil Foods, but the deal has not yet been approved by the Brazilian anti-trust
department.
Hog farming is a larger contributor to methane gas into the atmosphere. Sadia
invested around 60 million Brazilian reals ($34.3 million) in biodigestor equipment to
treat animal waste and turn it into fertilizer or energy, reducing carbon emissions by
as much as 21 times.
Around one-third of the Sadia's 3,500 contract farmers are currently part of the 3S
program. The number is expected to eventually incorporate the majority of Sadia
outsourced and owned hog farms, as well as Perdigao partner farms once the two
companies are completely integrated, Lucena said.
BRF Brasil Foods is Brazil's leading chicken exporter and owners of the two top
selling food brands in Brazil.
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/01/23/brazils-national-plan-on-climate-change-
and-the-amazon-fund-%E2%80%9Cthis-plan-does-not-create-any-carbon-credits-or-
right-to-emissions%E2%80%9D/
At the side event, Suzana Kahn Ribeiro, State Secretary, Ministry of Environment,
explained that Brazil’s National Plan on Climate Change was based on a very
participatory process. The plan is an important instrument for national climate policy.
The two main challenges in achieving the objective of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions are emissions from land use, land use change and forestry and to follow a
low carbon path of development.
She told us that Brazil wants to keep a high share of renewable energy in the energy
matrix. Kahn talked about encouraging the Brazilian ethanol programme, which is to
be carried out, “in a sustainable way, without deforestation or things like that”.
Ethanol crops are to be established on “degraded areas”.
Under the plan, deforestation is to be reduced by 70 per cent by 2018, which would
avoid 4.8 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Brazil wants “to eliminate net loss
of forest cover by 2015”, Kahn said. “This is not a package, the plan is not closed,”
she said. “We want to improve the plan.”
Azevedo did not mention that the FSC certified “forest” is not all forest – some of it is
monoculture eucalyptus plantations, such as these belonging to Veracel in the
northeastern state of Bahia. In mid-2008, a Brazilian Federal court fined Veracel
US$12 million for clearing an area of Atlantic Forest to make way for its plantations.
The company remains FSC certified.
Since 2004, the deforestation rate has decreased, Azevedo told us, although he
acknowledged that in 2008, the rate of deforestation is once again increasing.
The goal is a 70 per cent reduction in deforestation by 2018 over the average between
1996 and 2006. “We think that REDD is an excellent opportunity,” he said. The
Amazon Fund is a private fund. The aim is to raise US$21 billion from governments
and corporations. Any project funded through the Amazon Fund has to comply with
Brazil’s National Plan on Climate Change.
Azevedo told us that Brazil’s calculation for carbon emissions avoided from reduced
deforestation involves multiplying the area of deforestation avoided by 100, “even
though there is a range of carbon stored in Amazon forests”, he added. If the rate of
deforestation goes over the target, the target for the following year will be reduced by
the appropriate amount.
“This plan does not create any carbon credits or right to emissions,” he said.
The next presentation was from Paul Todescan Lessa Mattos, chief of staff,
Presidency, at the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). In 2008, BNDES
disbursed US$40 billion, plus US$30 billion in private equity. He told us about the
environmental policy that BNDES follows and about “the strict system that BNDES
has before it agrees disbursements”.
He told us that BNDES is the financial manager of the Amazon Fund and that the
Bank is opening a subsidiary in London to raise funds for the Amazon Fund.
Nicholas Stern explained that he was not representing any government but was
speaking as a University Professor at the London School of Economics and Political
Science. Nevertheless, he was very diplomatic. He said we should celebrate the
leadership of Brazil in showing a path on clean technology. On biofuels he said that if
you are clearheaded in policy, you can change technology quickly. “We can say a lot
about biofuels,” he added and promptly changed the subject.
He noted that Brazil has recently discovered oil. “In developing those assets, you need
to keep your commitment to a low carbon economy,” he said and talked about carbon
capture and storage through biomass which removes CO2 from the air. “This is
another area that Brazil can lead the world,” he said.
Low carbon growth is not only possible, he said, it is inevitable. It is the only way of
growth. He spoke about the danger of not addressing climate change. With an
increase in global temperatures of 3°C, the Amazon would collapse.
He talked about the obligation of the world to support the Amazon Fund and similar
initiatives. “We will all benefit,” he said. The two greatest challenges of the 21st
century are poverty and climate change. They have to be handled together. Northeast
Brazil is one of the poorest parts of the world. This is a story about development and
of deforestation, he said.
“We are on a plane leaking fuel,” Carlos Minc, Brazil’s Environment Minister, said.
“Those who made the smallest holes can’t go on saying that other holes are bigger.
We have decided to do our part.” Reducing emissions by 4.8 billion tons is more than
all the developed countries promised in Kyoto – which in any case they will not meet.
Minc promised that “We will not occupy one hectare of forest for ethanol nor take
away one hectare from food production. This will be green ethanol.”
Brazil has doubled its monitoring efforts of illegal logging, Minc said. “If we discover
a wood plant operating illegally, we close it down within one hour. But we can’t
protect jobs within one hour. So we need continued funding,” he said.
Minc spoke about the need for a pulbic fund for reducing emissions in developing
countries. This does not mean that developed countries don’t have to meet their
targets, he added. Reductions in deforestation funded through the Amazon Fund will
be additional and all projects funded will respect the full rights of Indigenous Peoples
and local people. He talked about guaranteeing the maintenance of biodiversity. We
have a plan, goals and the Amazon Fund.
WWF has criticised the Amazon Fund, describing it as “short on ambition and detail”
and both Greenpeace and WWF point out that even if the fund were to meet its target,
it would still result in the deforestation of more than 5,000 square kilometres per year.
There are other serious concerns and questions about the plans:
1. Brazil continues extracting oil and looking for new oil fields. While the
government is keen not to create carbon credits for the North through avoided
deforestation, will the government trade off emissions from oil against the
emissions saved by reducing the rate of deforestation?
2. The Juma Reserve RED Project in Brazil aims to reduce deforestation and
to produce carbon credits for sale internationally. How does this comply with
the government’s plans not to create carbon credits to rights to emissions? Is
the government planning a two-tier approach under which private companies
can set up forest conservation projects which generate carbon credits but the
government cannot?
3. As Nicholas Stern pointed out, much can be said about biofuels, although he
chose not to say much himself. There are plans for vast increases in the area of
biofuel crops in Brazil. Are these plans really compatible with attempts to
reduce deforestation? Another issue is the appalling labour conditions in sugar
plantations, which currently cover six million hectares in Brazil. “The working
conditions are atrocious, the wages derisory, their children are starving,” says
human rights activist Pater Tiago about the problems in north-east Brazil.
http://www.bnamericas.com/news/banking/CEF,_World_Bank_ink_carbon_credit_m
arkets_partnership
Brazilian federal savings bank Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF) and the World
Bank have signed a partnership arrangement on carbon credits, CEF said in a...
Byline: Mamta03
Process of clearing forests. Rates of deforestation are particularly high in the tropics,
where the poor quality of the soil has led to the practice of routine clear-cutting to
make new soil available for agricultural use.
..... Click the link for more information. and Degradation (REDD redd 1
tr.v. redd·ed or redd, redd·ing, redds Chiefly Pennsylvania
To clear: redd the dinner table. ) programme in anew agreement to extend or replace
the Kyoto Protocol Kyoto Protocol: see global warming.
..... Click the link for more information. could generate between 8 billion and 16
billion U.S. dollars annually in carbon credits for Brazil, the Brazilian Association of
Carbon Market (Abemc) said on Monday.
Currently, the UN-REDD is not covered not covered Health care adjective Referring
to a procedure, test or other health service to which a policy holder or insurance
beneficiary is not entitled under the terms of the policy or payment system–eg,
Medicare. Cf Covered. by the Kyoto Protocol, which recognizes only the carbon
credits for the recovery of lost areas or reforestation Reforestation
The reestablishment of forest cover either naturally or artificially. Given enough time,
natural regeneration will usually occur in areas where temperatures and rainfall are
adequate and when grazing and wildfires are not too frequent. in areas where there
were no forests.
Abemc President Flavio Gazania n. 1. any plant of the genus Gazania valued for their
showy daisy flowers.
Noun 1. gazania - any plant of the genus Gazania valued for their showy daisy
flowers
flower - a plant cultivated for its blooms or blossoms Rufino said the Brazilian
government, which had rejected the inclusion of the UN-REDD in the Kyoto
negotiations, recently changed its position and prepared to recognize the mechanism
at the 15th UN Climate Change Convention in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.
Forests, especially tropical ones, play a key role in the global carbon cycle because
they are both sources and absorbers of atmospheric carbon. Currently, deforestation of
tropical forests contributes to approximately 25 percent of annual global carbon
emissions.
The Brazilian government announced it will take to the Copenhagen climate change
convention the proposal to reduce 80 percent the Amazon deforestation until 2020 as
a contribution to overall efforts to protect the environment.
http://www.biglandsbrazil.com/rainforest/
Our experts will help you buy legitimate and profitable Rainforest Land and Carbon
Credits.
Buying Brazil Acres for Carbon Credit is one of the most problematic investments in
Brazil. There are hundreds of websites advertising acreage for US$10 per acre or less.
Unfortunately, 90% of these properties have a bad title and the Brazilian Government
does not recognize them. Of the 23 million acres of Brazilian Amazon Rainforest our
experts have reviewed, 18 million had bad titles.
Now the good news: we are the most experienced company in the world for Brazilian
Amazon Properties. We have over 3 million acres of Amazon land that is confirmed
to be clean and ready to sell with no anticipated problems whatsoever. We also have
over 8 billion legitimate Carbon Credits available for sale from existing land owners
that do not want to sell their properties.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/01/20/pm-carbon-q/?
refid=0&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed
%3A+APM_Marketplace_Sustainability+%28APM
%3A+Marketplace+stories+on+sustainability%29
Clearing the air on carbon credits
Mark Schapiro of the Center for Investigative Reporting talks with Kai Ryssdal about
an article he wrote for Harper's Magazine, which discusses how we can measure a
credit of carbon.
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Kai Ryssdal: The price of a ton of carbon lost some ground in the European carbon
markets today. They actually have a climate exchange over there, where companies
can buy and sell the right to pollute, in essence. Europe has what is called a cap-and-
trade system. Greenhouse gas emissions are capped, that is limited, and then those
pollution credits become a tradeable commodity, between industries that need 'em and
companies that have pollution to spare. Cap and trade is one of the big linchpins of
climate policy, using the market to control the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
But, of course, the reality is not even remotely so simple.
In this month's Harpers Magazine, Mark Schapiro spent some time trying to figure out
how you verify those carbon credits. Mark, welcome to the program.
Ryssdal: The cap and trade regime has two purposes. One is actually functioning as a
market. The other side of the coin, though, is the questionable part. Whether or not it
actually does really reduce carbon emissions.
SCHAPIRO: Yes, let me give you an example. If a major German utility, which
monitors the emissions at every one of their utilities all around Germany, and every
month that company knows exactly how much over their emission cap they're going;
and so whenever they reach that cap they know they have to go buy five million tons,
10 million tons, 50 million tons, 100 million tons of these things called credits.
Ryssdal: And when they need those credits they go to Brazil or some other
developing economy where some entrepreneur has set up a system whereby he can
promise reductions in emissions, yes?
SCHAPIRO: Yes, so that utility can then look to a developing country like Brazil, or
China, or India to find a project where a developer is saying all right, I would have
been emitting X amount of methane, for example. But I'm going to put in a little
machine that's going to capture the methane from the landfill and therefore I'm going
to reduce my emissions by X percent.
Ryssdal: He gets the credits for it, and then he sells that to the German utility and
everybody is happy, yes?
SCHAPIRO: Exactly.
Ryssdal: OK, so here is what has always stumped me about a possible cap-and-trade
market mechanism. It's not like you're buying and selling a pound of pork bellies here.
You have this amorphous thing, this unit of carbon, it's a unit of air, as your piece
talks about it. And you explain in your piece that the United Nations has set up a
verification mechanism. Tell us about that.
SCHAPIRO: Yeah, my piece explores who are the people that are doing these
measurements. And how reliable are these measurements? They are like the carbon
accountants, they are the ratings agencies that we saw in Wall Street that assess the
value of publicly-traded companies. Well, the same kind of process occurs with
carbon. And what's happened, for example, is two of the biggest of those ratings
agencies were actually suspended by the United Nations because of what the United
Nations determined was inadequate oversight of the audits that they had conducted
and inadequate technical skill levels of the people who work for them.
Ryssdal: Where does this leave us then? With the United States possibly getting into
this market, and yet the underlying premise of measuring the carbon credits not being
entirely reliable. I mean what happens next? I mean, this was the thing that was going
to save the planet, right?
SCHAPIRO: This was the thing that was going to save the planet. The cap-and-trade
system was largely designed by the United States as a way to detour around this idea
of a carbon tax. So now the rest of the world was left to execute this plan, of course,
when the United States left Kyoto in 2001. Now we're about to jump in. Where this
leaves us is a very serious debate over how you're going to oversee this market. For
example, is it going to be the Securities Exchange Commission, the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission, the people who regulate utilities? And how much
regulation is there going to be to ensure that the emissions that are promised are
actually delivered?
Ryssdal: Mark Schapiro. He's a senior correspondent at the Center for Investigative
Reporting. His piece in Harper's Magazine this month about carbon trade, and cap and
trade and all that, is called "Cunning the Climate." Mark, thanks a lot.
Comments
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• By Jonathan Teller-Elsberg
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Headings
This article is from Oxford Analytica's Daily Brief Services, which analyse
geopolitical, economic, social, business and industrial developments on a global and
regional basis, providing clients with timely, authoritative analysis every business
day of the year. An extensive and unique commissioning and editing process
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Abstract:
Plantar S.A. is a pig iron producer based in Brazil working toward an integrated
supply chain producing 100% green pig iron. The company is gradually converting
the coke fed into the blast furnaces from fossil to green (i.e., coal produced from
renewable biomass). The company owns large eucalyptus plantations in Brazil, and
was the first in Brazil to obtain the approval to trade Kyoto Protocol carbon credits.
At the time of the case, both internationally and locally, the process and the technical
methodologies were yet insufficiently defined. The World Bank saw Plantar as an
opportunity to consolidate the process and showcase the Kyoto Protocol.
The Plantar project was a success from a strictly financial viewpoint. In addition, it
put the organization on the path of significant transformation, and new growth
opportunities.
Teaching:
The case takes the experience of Plantar S.A., the first company to obtain the Kyoto
Protocol certification in Brazil, as a springboard to review the approval process, study
the carbon credit transaction mechanisms, understand the contribution of the World
Bank, and discuss the commitment to sustainability in business strategy.
The case was designed for a capstone course, either undergraduate or graduate, on
general management, corporate strategy, or corporate social responsibility. The case is
also appropriate for courses in the area of environmental studies, or sustainable
development. Its central goal and possibly greatest value is in offering a bridge of
understanding between business strategy and environmental ethics.
Industry:
Forestry and steel
Setting:
Brazil 2008
Length:
18 pages
Source:
Field case
Published:
August 2009
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