The collection of stalled and wrecked policies accumulating on the shoulder of the road to meaningful climate action are not distracting project developers and market players who appear to be staying confident with eyes fixed directly ahead.
In California, another firestorm of commentary and debate broke with news that the state will delay enforcement of its cap-and-trade scheme until 2013, a year later than previously planned. Despite repeated assurances over recent months that rule making and planning was going at pace to avoid delays in the roll out of the cap-and-trade program, it appears California’s regulators have faced more hurdles and detours than could fit into their ambitious time line.
On the sleepier international climate policy front, it came as little surprise when climate talks at Bonn ended with the post-Kyoto outlook gloomy as ever. With the EU being the only developed world constituency to agree to a post-2012 Kyoto-like agreement, many observers remain unconvinced that disagreements between developed and developing nations will be resolved between now and the Durban talks in December. At the same time negotiators continue punting on broader policy issues, REDD+ remains an enticing topic as negotiators move slowly forward evaluating financing mechanisms and options for forest emissions reference levels.
In Indonesia, the new car smell from the national forest moratorium (officially sanctioned just last month), has worn off as reports of its first alleged violation emerge. A Malaysia-based company with palm oil interests in Indonesia has been accused of violating the moratorium by clearing peat forest the day after the landmark decree was signed. The company, however, denies wrong doing, saying the operation was halted, and besides, it was part of a legal concession anyway. We’re trying hard to imagine a better recipe for confidence in the monitoring and enforcement many critics voiced concerns over prior to the belated Presidential decree.
Meanwhile, project developers are cruising down the autobahn. Indonesia’s Papua province will be the home to a new public-private partnership designed to fuel regional demand and reinvestment in REDD+ and other conservation projects using VCS project grouping. The first forest project to be registered formally under the American Carbon Registry added a new notch to its belt after receiving a $5.6M investment from a US rail company. And what’s more, the first government-backed insurance package was unveiled covering political risks to a pioneering private REDD+ project developer. Not to give an overly happy picture, we also caught wind of one highly-rated, but nevertheless distressed, project calling out for bids to bankroll its next seven years in Mozambique.
It’s probably no surprise by now for our dear readers to see the array of dedicated project developers working to forge boldly ahead while broader and fundamental political efforts seem to be stymied or only just moseying slowly along, but deep down we’re sure there’s still a little seed of hope in all of you that policymakers can find that needed rest-stop and finally get back up to speed with their private counterparts.
Read about all these stories and more in Ecosystem Marketplace’s latest issue of the Forest Carbon Newsletter.
