Principles of justice in proposals and policy approaches to avoided deforestation: Towards a post-Kyoto climate agreement

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Abstract

This paper offers a normative analysis of the current negotiations on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Drawing on existing theories of distributive justice, we seek to determine which interpretations of equity are embodied in the key proposals and policy approaches to REDD in the run up to a post-Kyoto climate agreement. Our analysis indicates that whilst the various proposals are characterised by different and sometimes contradictory notions of equity, it is the ideas that are more consistent with neoliberal concepts of justice that tend to prevail. The result is that despite abiding contestations and controversies, emerging REDD policy solutions for the post-2012 climate regime looks very likely to reflect a commitment to market-based approaches to forest governance. However, whilst such market-based approaches might serve the preferences of powerful players, their effectiveness in terms of forest preservation, the protection of indigenous peoples and sustainable community development remains extremely dubious. On a broader note, our analysis reinforces the growing realization that the international arena is not beyond the pale of moral arguments but rather that the governance of global environmental change implicates elemental ethical questions regarding which ways of life human beings ought to pursue.

Introduction

The topic of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) currently occupies a prime position in the international climate regime development agenda. In the last three rounds of UN climate talks – from Nairobi in 2006, through Bali, to Poznan in 2008 – a huge amount of time and effort in UNFCCC technical and plenary meetings was devoted to discussions over REDD (also known as avoided deforestation) (Okereke et al., 2007, Alvarado and Wertz-Kanounnikoff, 2007). However, the sensitive and intractable nature of the issues involved suggests that negotiations will probably drag and remain clumsy until the last days of agreeing a post-2012 climate change arrangement. The diversity of interests and concerns surrounding the issues also imply that whatever agreement is reached would entail important trade-offs and consequences for human lives and the environment.

The topicality and high profile of REDD negotiations derive from at least three key factors. First is the pivotal role of forests as carbon sinks and consequently, their importance in global climate stabilization. Second is the relatively new attention to the significant contribution of deforestation to global greenhouse gas emissions. According to Stern (2007) almost one-fifth of global emissions come from land use change, which is almost entirely attributed to deforestation in tropical regions (cf. IPCC, 2007). Indeed, deforestation and forest degradation deliver a triple blow to climate stability. As well as being the second largest contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Stern, 2007), deforestation destroys ecosystems that are sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere and additionally alters land surface conditions that modulate global climate and weather patterns. In fact, the large range in the risk estimates of exceeding 2 °C (Baer and Mastrandrea, 2006) are in part down to uncertainty about the continuing uptake of global carbon sinks, with the IPCC predicting that terrestrial sinks could become emission sources with a global temperature rise of only 2.2 °C (IPCC, 2007). The third reason for the prominence of REDD negotiations is that the topic implicates several issues of justice and equity across different geographies and scales of governance (from local through national to international levels). REDD discussions throw up among others the (in)justice of land tenure systems in many developing countries, the (un)fairness of control and access rights to natural resources and the morality of global management of sovereign-based natural resources. REDD is further unique because its provisions may not only have immediate and significant consequences for thousands of indigenous communities that depend on forests for their livelihoods, but also because it offers an unprecedented opportunity for synergies between environmental and social benefits. The realisation of this however, will depend on the way questions of justice are dealt with in the negotiation process and resultant policy outcomes.

In this paper we offer the first attempt to a systematic ethical analysis of the REDD negotiations under the UNFCCC. Drawing from existing theories of distributive justice, we seek to determine which interpretations of equity are embodied in the key proposals and policy approaches to REDD in the run up to post-Kyoto climate agreement, and indicate the potential practical consequences of such approaches. Moreover, we argue that the different offerings for REDD represent not simply varying approaches to climate governance but also different ways of viewing the world; different methods of value ranking and different notions about what the good life ought to be. As the world moves towards a post-2012 climate agreement, understanding the ways in which values lead to long-term environmental and human conditions is critical in negotiating an equitable and effective climate regime.

The rest of the paper develops as follows. We begin by providing a brief overview of the evolution of forest debates within the climate change negotiations and the importance of biodiversity and the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples in this. The paper then outlines a distributive justice framework from which to analyse policy for the likely sustainability of outcomes. Eight key REDD proposals are then discussed and analysed in terms of the notions of justice and potential resultant policies inherent within them. In discussion we advance the argument that the dominance of neoliberal ideals characterising policy responses to REDD is likely to result in increases in cumulative GHG emissions as well as global inequality. In conclusion, we draw out some policy implications of the analysis.

Section snippets

Avoided deforestation-progress from Marrakesh to Poznan

The current legal framework of the UNFCCC does not contain any mechanism to reward efforts to reduce deforestation rates in countries which are not Kyoto signatories.2 This was ruled out of inclusion in the Kyoto Protocol

Distributional justice framework

Ideas about distributive justice are as varied as the cultures with which they are bound up (Sachs and Santarius, 2007). Climate justice literature presents several typologies and conceptions of justice that figure in regime development debates and party proposals (Paterson, 1996, Paavola and Adger, 2006, Grasso, 2007, Okereke, 2008, Klinsky and Dowlatabadi, 2009). Indeed, the literature is so diverse that Rowlands (1997, p. 4) claims nearly every analyst has sought to “derive their own

Core REDD proposals and notions of justice

The following assessment, which evaluates some of the key concepts of justice in different REDD proposals and identifies the environmental and social implications which result, is by no means a comprehensive list of REDD proposals. The analysis here only focuses on the key proposals as advanced by the most vocal parties or coalitions. We believe that analysis of these contending proposals is sufficient to highlight the key notions of justice at play in the international arena and point us to

Discussions: distributive justice in REDD proposals

The preceding sections seek to establish the notions of justice that underpin various core REDD proposals by state parties and their collations in the run up to the post-Kyoto global climate agreement. The analysis indicates that nearly all the proposals before the UNFCCC implicate varying and sometimes conflicting notions of justice even though this is hardly explicitly mentioned in proposals. On one level, this serves to substantiate the point that international politics is certainly not

Conclusions: policy implications

Whilst the preoccupation of mainstream UNFCCC REDD policy processes centre around technical and methodological issues, state parties and other autonomous actors in the international arena are already arguing over proposals which indicate various approaches to global forest governance. Furthermore we have shown that the various proposals on offer do not simply reflect differences in ideas about how to manage forests, but that they also reflect differences in value and subscription to varying

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the editors of GEC and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

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