Media availability: Separating fact from fiction on forests, REDD and climate

Challenges, controversies and opportunities for forest mitigation and adaptation in the lead up to COP15 in Copenhagen

Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) may be the only concrete success to come out of COP15, but many challenges will need to be overcome for REDD to effectively reduce emissions from deforestation.

Over the next coming years, climate negotiators, national policymakers, and a broad range of actors in the forest sector and beyond will seek to build consensus on the architecture of REDD to ensure that it reduces forest-based emissions and contributes to sustainable forest management and development, while benefiting forest-dependent peoples.

Are forests ready for climate change?

Even seemingly minor changes in climate can have devastating consequences on forests, by making them more susceptible to drought, insect attack and fires, for example. CIFOR researchers are looking into how better forest management can reduce the vulnerability of forests, and the biodiversity they harbor, to climate change.

Can REDD deliver on its promises to reduce emissions? Who will benefit?

Climate negotiators are discussing a REDD mechanism that could see up to USD25 billion a year transferred from rich countries to developing, forest-rich nations in exchange for reducing carbon emissions from their forest areas. CIFOR researchers are analysing what is needed to ensure the funds achieve their purpose, reach the intended recipients, and do not disappear in corruption or mismanagement.

Forest Day 3 at COP15

In the midst of contentious negotiations in Copenhagen, more than 1500 of the world's leading experts, activists, policymakers, journalists and global leaders will gather for Forest Day 3 to review new findings regarding the role of forests in reducing climate change and discuss the state of forests in global climate negotiations.

Keynote speakers at Forest Day 3 will include Elinor Ostrom, political economist and 2009 Nobel Laureate for Economic Science; Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and 2007 Nobel Laureate for Peace; Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and UN Special Envoy on Climate Change; and Lord Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE) and author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

The day-long event will take place on Sunday, 13 December. Forest Day 3 (FD3) is hosted by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) and the Government of Denmark. Forest Day 3 will build on the success of Forest Day 1 and 2 in helping to place forests high on the agenda in current and future climate negotiations. For more information, please visit: www.forestday3.org

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For more information, please visit: www.cifor.cgiar.org/Research/ClimateChange.

Researchers from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) are available for media interviews (in multiple languages) to discuss the challenges, controversies and opportunities for forest mitigation and adaptation in the lead up to COP15 in Copenhagen.

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