Cambodia Signs Anti-deforestation Agreement

Written by DAP NEWS -- Wednesday, 04 November 2009

(Posted by CAAI News Media)

Cambodia and four other countries have joined a United Nations initiative aimed at combating climate change by creating incentives for poorer countries to reverse the trend of deforestation and invest in more sustainable forms of development, a UN press release said on Tuesday.

Five countries, Argentina, Cam-bodia, Ecuador, Nepal and Sri Lanka, were each asked to participate in the Reducing Emissions from Defores- tation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) initiative, it said, adding to the initial 9 member countries.

“Instead of demanding concessions for carbon emissions reductions from others, we must ask how we can contribute to a better world,” Chief of Cambodia’s forestry administration Ty Sokun said last week at a climate change forum in Singapore. Ty Sokun’s remarks could also have been addressed to the heads of state and officials due to negotiate on climate change in Copenhagen in December, on the future of the Kyoto Protocol. World climate change negotiators have failed to agree on how to implement the target of below 2 degrees Celsius temperature increases, which would otherwise have devastating negative impacts on life. The Kyoto Protocol, expiring in 2012, requires developed countries limit or reduce Green house Gases (GHG) emission.

According to a press release from the UN, Cambodia and other countries signed on November 2, and they said they wanted to benefit from the expertise generated by UN-REDD and its activities, particularly concerning improved consultations with indigenous peoples and civil society. UN-REDD, which is a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Development Program, and the UN Environment Program, hopes to eventually generate up to US$30 billion a year of financial flows from rich countries to poor nations to help them reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The initiative targets deforestation and forest degradation as related activities such as agricultural expansion, the conversion of forests to pasture land, infrastructure development, destructive logging and fires account for almost 20 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases.

In its first year of operations, UN-REDD has approved more than US$37 million in funding for the national anti-deforestation programs of countries, including Panama, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Vietnam. The program says another 20 countries have voiced interest in joining. Denmark also announced Nov2 that it is become the second country donor to the program after Norway.

In Cambodia, The William J. Clinton Foundation also promised a reforestation and deforestation reduction program. Recently, South Korea also promised to help Cambodia with forestry and tree planting against climate change.