More than 20 years old and still playing games

Brazil and the European Union are engaged in a gridlock on the negotiation related to CDM. It all started Monday during the discussion regarding what is known here as “Forests in Exhaustion” during the UN Climate negotiation meetings.

Forest in exhaustion is a complex subject. It involves reducing emission by managing forests that were planted less than 30 years ago, but have been so heavily logged that won’t regenerate naturally. These barren landscapes now need a human hand to help get their forest cover back to their natural state.

One of the main issues in the negotiations this year has been “eligibility criteria”. This is basically how to define how if forestry project can actually be selected to receive carbon finance. Forests in exhaustion involves are existing (but degraded) forests, so it is tricky to assess the impact of reforestation and emission reductions there.

This is a critical issue for Brazil, as the country has been engaging aggressively to reduce deforestation in the Amazon. As a result, Brazil and other similar nations working to prevent deforestation may find it to be an additional source of carbon finance, because it could potentially increase the number of available forestry projects .

However, the European Union refused to further discuss the matter. Instead, they argued that any decision regarding the second commitment period of the CDM, should reflect on the decisions for the ADP. So they blocked any progress, keeping Brazil and others one step further away from seizing on their climate finance opportunities.

This, of course, was not very well received by the Brazilian delegation. Well, that’s putting it politely.

Yesterday, during in the SBI meeting regarding the future of CDM, Brazil decided to hit back. Throughout the day, Brazil was actively slowing down the negotiations until they finally exclaimed, “Why do you want to continue this? We object to having another meeting on this!”

Then they got up, and left. Leaving a gobsmacked audience.

When I later caught up with members of the Brazilian delegation as to why they did this they told me, “We are repeating what the European Union said. If they had a concern with forests, we have concerns here.” I guess that’s how things roll.

“They didn’t allow us to discuss things there, because they had concern about the lack of clarity in the CDM. So we are repeating the same arguments here. Exactly the same,” said José Miguez, a Negotiator from the Brazilian delegation.

This is my first COP, and that was the first time I attended a negotiation. I was expecting a dense debate on technical issues, but instead I found out that politics have much more weight than I imagined at the beginning.

While watching on, a delegate from Panamá shrugged their shoulders and was about to leave before reminding me, “Oh, I see. They are just playing games.”

But games won’t get us anywhere.