We Have Politics, Too
New York -- One of the most interesting panels at the Clinton Global Initiative, chaired by John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, dealt with the world's forests: how to save them by investing in their value as, among other things, carbon sinks.
On one level, the panel -- which included the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo; Kuntoro Mangkusubotra, the Indonesian minister in charge of forests; Nobel Prize laureate Wangari Maathai; U.S. Climate Negotiator Jonathan Pershing; and Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia -- was very hopeful. Everyone on the panel agreed that you can't solve the climate crisis without saving the world's forests, that saving forests was highly affordable, and that it would yield almost immediate beneficial results. And it was clear that the nations with the biggest tropical forests -- Brazil, Indonesia, and the Congo Basin -- are at the table and open to change.
But it's not clear that the nations responsible for most of the carbon pollution are ready to do their part, with the noble exception of the Norwegians, who are the real leaders here. President Jagdeo of Guyana put it very plainly: his nation is willing to give up the huge economic benefits that come from cutting down its forests, but needs replacement revenue. The rich nations are not willing to commit to meaningful reductions in their carbon emissions, so private carbon markets won't generate enough income to save forests. And the rich nations claim that the economic crisis makes it impossible for them to provide public funds. Forest protection is absolutely essential, and is the lowest-hanging fruit. But it's not being picked. As Jagdeo said, "this leaves me seriously worried about whether we have any chance of doing the things that are more expensive than saving forests."
Indonesia's Mangkusubotra made the point that forest nations are being asked to make enormous changes and sacrifices. "Our people had an easy source of revenue, cutting down forests and then planting oil palms. You are asking us to give up that choice, but saying you can offer nothing in return because of your politics. Well, we have politics too."
And even when the money flows, the historical arrogance of Europe and the U.S. is getting in the way. President Jagdeo complained that when Norway provided a billion dollars for Guyana, it was almost impossible to get the World Bank to sign a clean transfer agreement that recognized that this was not charity, not aid -- it was a fee paid by those who dump carbon to those who provide the service of storing it for them in their forests.
Eventually Guyana signed an unsatisfactory payment agreement, but this kind of refusal to change our ways is going cripple our ability to make rapid progress -- the kind we need -- for the utterly absurd reason of our unwillingness to admit that our enormous carbon emissions constitute theft from the rest of the world. If we are going to squat on the forests of the Congo or the beaches of the Seychelles, we should at least have the decency to pay our rent on time.
