Highly Inflammable!

Posted on 08. Oct, 2010 by Leela Raina in India

For most of us Inflammable is a skintily clad Malaike Arora Khan who is dancing around on the song Munni Badnaam hui or seeing Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai looking their sultry selves in Dhoom 2 ( accept it ,you’re imagining the same picture in your brain as me ) . But in the negotiation centre we talk about more sreious stuff like - what colour shoes Bernidittas is wearing today , or has Pershing;s intervention had any change, or what day is it again.? The most important carbon sinks of the world are threatened by forest fires and conflagrations not caused by Aishwarya but by runaway climate change. I met some of the most hardworking group of people outside Room Taipie who were negotiating till the corridors not caring about their time or surroundings. I felt , oh yes , something substancial to chew on today. Although I was not from a strong forest background , I was helped by Mr V R S Rawat who along withe Mr Kishwan have been instrumental in shaping the G77 and China’s strategy for the LULUCF. ( if youre wondering what that means- land use and land use change and forestry , don’t read into it over and over please) . So India, since it is a developing country has more emphasis on decisions on the REDD issues rather than the forestry ones since they are to do largely with the developed world.

I had a long session with Mr V R S Rawat who explained the concept to me and laid it out in a simple and neat fashion. So he says that the basis of LULUCF is from Article 3.3 of the kyoto protocol which is mandatory.

The net changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks resulting from direct human-induced land-use change and forestry activities, limited to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation since 1990, measured as verifiable changes in carbon stocks in each commitment period, shall be used to meet the commitments under this Article of each Party included in Annex I. The greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks associated with those activities shall be reported in a transparent and verifiable manner and reviewed in accordance with Articles 7 and 8.

But the confusion and the stress stems from the the Article 3.4 which is optional and has four elements to it .

Prior to the first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol, each Party included in Annex I shall provide, for consideration by the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, data to establish its level of carbon stocks in 1990 and to enable an estimate to be made of its changes in carbon stocks in subsequent years. The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol shall, at its first session or as soon as practicable thereafter, decide upon modalities, rules and guidelines as to how, and which, additional human-induced activities related to changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks in the agricultural soils and the land-use change and forestry categories shall be added to, or subtracted from, the assigned amounts for Parties included in Annex I, taking into account uncertainties, transparency
in reporting, verifiability, the methodological work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the advice provided by the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice in accordance with Article 5 and the decisions of the Conference of the Parties. Such a decision shall apply in the second and subsequent commitment periods. A Party may choose to apply such a decision on these additional human induced activities for its first commitment period, provided that these activities have taken place since 1990.

While the G 77 wants to have all the options in the article 3.4 being made mandatory the annex 1 countries would like to pick and choose what suits them for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Also some of the Annex 1 countries also have come up with the concept of wetland management to be suggested to be one of the options added to the artocle 3.4 . The debate is that wetland management is still debatable on the basis of whether it is a carbon sink or acts like a carbon source and hence G 77 still don’t buy into this argument.

Although when I asked what is the status of the LULUCF after the Bonn meetings where I had last updated you all on this issue , I was surprised that there was some movement ( i was doing a bit of a dance in my head) . There seemed to be movement on

Reference Levels discussions

The only further movement has been that the G77 and China has suggested that there should be an independent review of the process to how countries are reaching there set x% reference levels which should be conducted by expert review team under the UNFCCC.

Forest Management

HWP - another of those irritating acronyms - Harvested Wood products . So the deal with this is that we are trying to figure out whose carbon is getting emitted ? ( i wonder how the environment is benifitted since the fight is about who is emitting it) . This happens since the piece of wood undergoes through various stages namely oxidisation at the source , converting it into a durable wood product and then sending it all the way to Europe. Now I am wondering is this carbon attributed to source tree which was in Indonesia or final destination - europe? ( we might have to wonder for a few months , years for consensus on this but I think instead maybe we could just stop buying imported wood stuff)

Force Majaure

A word or set of letters I had heard for the first time in my life , which basically meant beyond human control. So for example if there is a forest fire then the countries are excused from accounting for those emissions, but in case you accumulate 1800 of such fires and want to be excused, that is considered unfair , so the parties are trying to get to a threshold limit which will enable them to segregate human inaction from that of beyond control.

Ok , before your Bheja Fry’s off with an overload of new information , here’s to a contructive last day at Tianjin!

Tags: badnaam, China, dabang, debate, dhoom 2 . behja fry, forests, g 77, India, kishwan, LULUCF, malaika arora khan, munni, negotiators, products, progress, rawat, Tianjin, wood