A Jun. 7 session of the second GLOBE Summit of World Legislators in the Mexican Congress. Nearly 500 legislators from some 90 countries took part in the gathering in Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jun 9 2014 (IPS)

Latin America’s parliaments have failed to protect the forests and to guarantee their sustainable use, despite the fact that a number of countries have laws on forests, legislators from the region said at a global summit in the Mexican capital.

There are problems in areas such as respect for the rights of local communities, budget allocations for the protection of forests, land tenure guarantees, forest floor carbon ownership, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from sustainable use of forests.

“We aren’t working with the communities, and we don’t have the technical capacity to include international standards; the government is fearful and more worried about bringing in forest investment in activities like mining, without any responsibility for the environment,” Colombian Senator Mauricio Ospina of the left-wing Alternative Democratic Pole told IPS.

Ospina was one of the nearly 500 legislators from more than 90 countries who took part in the Jun. 6-8 second GLOBE Summit of World Legislators in Mexico City, organised by the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE International).

The summit agenda focused on the struggle against climate change and efforts to protect forests and natural capital.

Colombia, which has 60 million hectares of forest, is one of the 18 nations of the developing South taking part in the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (U.N. REDD), which was launched in 2007.

U.N. REDD is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. It finances national programmes to fight deforestation, reduce carbon emissions and foment access by participating countries to technical and financial support to combat climate change.

U.N. REDD was launched as a collaborative programme of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

The aim goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Preventing deforestation is essential because trees capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into carbon in their trunks and branches and in the soil. When forests are cut down, not only do they stop absorbing carbon, but also the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere as CO2. Moreover, forests are critical to rainfall and play a key role in the water cycle through evaporation and precipitation.

In June 2013, U.N. REDD approved an allocation to Colombia of four million dollars for activities such as the creation of a forest inventory, the development of social and environmental safeguards, and the identification of benefits.

Colombia is carrying out 10 U.N. REDD projects and another 23 forest initiatives. Since 2008, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) has approved an additional 3.6 million dollars in funds for the country.

The REDD+ action plan for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation is a platform of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change that incorporates elements like conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks and the sustainable management of forests.

Peru is also moving forward in the design of a REDD+ strategy, facing challenges similar to those of the rest of the region.

“We have to work in the communities, providing them with tools,” Congresswoman Marisol Espinoza, of the governing Peruvian Nationalist Party, told IPS. “Those who take care of the forests are their guardians and should be paid for what they do. We hope the new laws will strengthen this new approach to preserving forests.”

Peru is developing a national REDD+ strategy that has a handicap: it has no mechanism to resolve disputes over land property rights, according to the article “REDD+ Readiness progress across countries: time for reconsideration” published in May in the British journal Climate Policy.

There are currently 19 REDD+ projects and another 18 forest initiatives in that Andean nation, which is set to receive 3.8 million dollars from the FCPF.

The 20 authors of the study published in the Climate Policy journal, who assessed the cases of Peru, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cameroon, found that progress had been made in planning, coordination, demonstration and pilots.

But they said measurement, reporting and verification of forest carbon, audits, financing, benefit sharing, and policies, laws and institutions faced major challenges.

They suggested a “rethink of the current REDD+ Readiness infrastructure given the serious gaps observed in addressing drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, linking REDD+ to broader national strategies and systematic capacity building.”

Mexico, which is moving forward in fits and starts in its national REDD+ strategy, has some 65 million hectares covered by trees in the territories of around 2,300 communities, according to the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS).

“There are still important steps to take to create a legal framework that would provide a sound coherent foundation for the successful application of REDD+,” Mexican lawmaker Lourdes López, cochair of the Globe International forestry initiative, told IPS. “The priority is to support sustainable forest producers and grant facilities to small producers.”

López, of Mexico’s Ecological Green Party, is promoting the reform of the 2003 General Law on Sustainable Forestry Development, to cut red tape surrounding forestry initiatives, foment commercial forest plantations, and step up certification of good management practices.

She also wants to regulate businesses like carpentries and furniture stores, to ensure that the lumber they use was legally obtained.

There are 11 REDD+ projects and another 38 forest initiatives in Mexico. In March, the FCPF and the government signed an agreement for 3.8 million dollars to complete the process of consultation and preparation of the REDD+ national strategy.

The government is about to open up the consultation process in order for the strategy to begin to be implemented next year.

The declaration of the second GLOBE Summit of World Legislators, to which IPS had access before it was released, only alludes indirectly to the forestry issue, by emphasising the approval of robust laws that support sustainable development, including forests and REDD+.

The parliamentarians urged governments and the U.N. to press international financial institutions for environmental programmes like REDD+ to involve national legislators, in order to “develop capacities and share best legislative practices.”

In response to a question from IPS, Rachel Kyte, World Bank Group vice president and special envoy for climate change, predicted significant changes in international financial institutions and the nations with the greatest forest capital with respect to the increase in REDD+, at the U.N. General Assembly in September.

Kyte said that since December “we have more than 300 million dollars” to support forest projects.

In Espinoza’s view, it is essential that forest protection schemes do not reproduce poverty.

One country that the rest of the region looks to is Costa Rica, a world pioneer in setting the goal of reaching carbon neutrality in 2021. According to official estimates, the Central American nation will emit close to 21 million tonnes of carbon in 2021, and it hopes to compensate for 75 percent of this total by carbon capture in its forests, which cover 52 percent of the national territory.

Moses Ginindza (l) and Mphumuzi Magwagwa, Swazi firewood vendors. While wood poaching is illegal under environment laws in many African countries, researchers note that nothing is being done in providing alternative sources of energy to curb deforestation.Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jun 2 2014 (IPS)

Despite a raft of legislation dealing with the environment, African countries are still falling short when it comes to enforcing the legal instruments that respond to challenges posed by climate change, researchers say. 

“Most African countries have robust legislation on the environment. But good on paper as they are, they fall far short of implementation,” Samuel Ogalla, programme manager at the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), a coalition of civil society organisations from the continent, told IPS.

Many countries have acts of parliament and statutory laws in place that, for example, punish those contributing to global warming. Deforestation is a huge challenge towards implementing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) programmes and while wood poaching is illegal under environment laws, researchers note that nothing is being done to provide alternative sources of energy to curb deforestation.

While there has been a push to familiarise African parliamentarians on climate change issues to assist them with drafting climate legislation for their local realities, existing country laws have also failed to follow up on climate change concerns.

“African countries need to go beyond mere crafting of environmental laws to full implementation of such laws with clear monitoring, reporting and verifiable mechanisms if the continent must address climate change and other environmental challenges facing the region,” Ogalla said.

One such example is Zimbabwe. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), this country has one of the most comprehensive environmental legislations in southern Africa.

Yet Zimbabwe faces huge drawbacks in addressing and meeting its REDD+ commitments because of decades-long deforestation.

Heinrich Böll Stiftung Southern Africa, the German Green Political Foundation, says Africa lacks comprehensive legal frameworks and this “may present barriers to the implementation of adaptation responses, and possibly increase the vulnerabilities of certain groups such as women and the poor.”

The organisation has also noted that while there are campaigns to raise climate change awareness, there has been “fewer investments in legislative aspects.”

Researchers say this has relegated the climate change drive to the periphery of public policy at a time when the call is for African countries to domesticate international conventions of which they are signatories such as the UNFCC.

Laws must go beyond punishing wood poachers and polluters to addressing the core issues, says Charles Ndondo, director of Carbon Green Africa, a company established to facilitate the generation of carbon credits through validating REDD projects in Zimbabwe.

“Legislation to address climate change issues [in Zimbabwe] has always been there if you consider the Forestry Act … and various legislations which deal with the environment,” Ndondo told IPS.

“The only challenge with these acts is that they are more punitive rather than addressing the root causes of climate change. The Forestry Act prohibits people from cutting firewood for fuel purposes but does not provide alternatives and hence the challenge,” he said.

The South African-based Trade Law Centre, in recommendations to Africa’s regional blocs, including the Southern African Development Community, East African Community, and the Common Market for East and Southern African, noted that the constraints that African countries face in implementing successful strategies to address climate change include “weak institutional and legal frameworks.”

“Regional and national legal frameworks can enable countries in the region to build adaptive capacity and reduce their vulnerability to the effects of climate change,” the centre observed.

These are the “bottlenecks” GLOBE International legislators across the continent are trying to address, says Innocent Onah, director of GLOBE Nigeria.

GLOBE International brings together parliamentarians across the world and helps them draft laws “in pursuit of sustainable development” and convenes the World Summit of Legislators to advance relevant climate legislation.

“While it may be correct that without climate change legislation a lot would not be achieved domestically, I am of the opinion that even where laws exists, if there’s lack of capacity to implement or enforce the laws, we are back to square one,” Onah told IPS.

“Legislation is one of the tools that governments can use to tackle climate change problems, in Africa, [but] the major issue is not the absence of laws but lack of resources and the political will to implement established laws and policies,” he said.

While Onah observed that “parliamentarians from different countries have different levels of environmental competencies,” PACJA’s Ogalla says that more laws are not necessarily the answer.

“More and new legislation are being crafted on environment across the continent but the irony is that with all these laws, the continent still remains the vulnerable hot spot to climate change and other environmental problems,” Ogalla said.

Domesticating international agreements allows “countries [to] forge ahead with distinctive national actions that run alongside international collective action,” says the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Efforts are underway to restore the tidal flatlands in Mikawa Bay in central Japan’s Aichi Prefecture. Credit: Aichi Fisheries Research Institute (AFRI)

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Jun 2 2014 (IPS)

Undaunted by Japan’s national consensus to boost the economy, which has been mired in lackluster growth for decades, environmentalists are taking baby steps towards incorporating climate change into national legislation.

Proponents of the plan to make Japan more environmentally friendly are up against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s popular ‘Abenomics’ regime that promises to accelerate the country’s two-percent GDP growth through a combination of fiscal stimulus packages and structural reforms.

Crippled by the catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011, Japan has seen an increase in fuel imports to make up for the deficit of nuclear power, which once supplied 30 percent of the country’s energy needs.

The world’s third largest economy, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of 5.93 trillion dollars, Japan now imports 90 percent of its energy, an arrangement that has left it with a deficit of 10.5 billion dollars.

"[Parliamentarians] need to realise that economic growth can only be sustainable by calculating the contribution of natural resources." -- Jinichi Ueda, deputy director of GLOBE Japan
It has also resulted in a sharp spike in carbon emissions – by 2012 the country had recorded an emissions rate of 2.46 tons per unit of GDP, compared to 2.3 tons in 2010. Japan now ranks among the world’s ‘top 12’ emitters of greenhouse gases.

Against this backdrop, environmentalists have watched with dismay as the Abe administration has backed away from the previous government’s promise to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Now, with their eyes on the upcoming GLOBE Summit of World Legislators scheduled to take place in Mexico City from Jun. 6-8 with the aim of formulating an international agreement on climate legislation, Japanese environmentalists and lawmakers are struggling to revive old promises.

GLOBE Japan – a case for environmental accounting

The Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment, or GLOBE, was founded in 1989 with the express goal of leveraging national legislation in response to urgent environmental challenges.

Now linked to the legislators’ protocol adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 2012, GLOBE prioritises lawmakers’ role in shaping a nation’s budgetary allocations to account for increasing natural disasters as a result of global warming, and to prevent the destruction of natural environments that has long been justified as necessary for economic growth.

One of the organisation’s projects that resonates particularly in Japan is the Globe Natural Capital Initiative (GNCI), which is based on the cold reality that the unsustainable use of natural resources does not, in the long run, accelerate a country’s GDP; in fact, it can actually make a country poorer.

“We are working hard to win the support of parliamentarians to implement legislation that will make environmental accounting a criteria for policy making,” Jinichi Ueda, deputy director of GLOBE Japan, told IPS, hastening to add: “It’s not easy.”

Environmental accounting considers the impact of economic activity on a country’s natural resources and calculates all related costs of development including, for example, the bill for cleaning up a contaminated site, waste management expenses, or environmental fines and penalties.

Ueda assists GLOBE Japan Head Yoriko Kawaguchi, a former foreign and environment minister known for her insistence on calculating the economic benefit of ecosystems.

Kawaguchi, now a member of the House of Councilors – the upper house of Japan’s National Diet – has launched study sessions for parliamentarians to deepen their understanding of the country’s natural capital, and gain their support for the GNCI.

“The first step to including environmental accounting in mainstream policy is to convince Japanese politicians through study programmes. They need to realise that economic growth can only be sustainable by calculating the contribution of natural resources,” Ueda asserted.

Already, Japan has embarked on meticulous research that can be deployed to motivate its political leaders.

A case in point is the Aichi Fisheries Research Institute (AFRI), which, under the leadership of Dr. Mitsuyasu Waku, is carrying out a multi-million-yen project to restore the tidal flatlands in Mikawa Bay, located in central Japan’s Aichi Prefecture.

Coastal wetlands formed from mud deposits, tidal flats are essential ecosystems, providing fertile breeding ground for hundreds of species and preventing coastal erosion. The tidal flats in Mikawa Bay are considered one of Japan’s most fertile fishing grounds, supporting a diverse array of marine species as well as the local economy.

Despite their documented benefits at the local and national levels, the tidal flats are an endangered ecosystem in Japan where, in the 1970s, 1,200 hectares of the rich land in the eastern part of Milkawa Bay was cleared in preparation for the construction of a harbour.

The result was a significant increase in ‘red tides’, also known as algal blooms – unusually high concentrations of aquatic microorganisms that can release natural toxins that are fatal to marine and coastal species. Red tides have long been associated with the high mortality rates of manatees, and can devastate fishing yields.

Speaking to IPS, Waku explained that the restoration and preservation of Mikawa Bay – famous for its massive catches of short-necked clams that provide a livelihood for thousands of fisher folk – strengthens the economic argument for protecting natural capital.

Clam catches in Aichi total roughly 20,000 tons annually, representing profits of some 39 million dollars for the local fishing industry every year.

“The economic benefits alone of maintaining tidal flats, not even including their natural water purification contribution, is pretty obvious,” Waku told IPS.

Other GLOBE proponents, such as Akiri Omori, a macro economist at Yokohama City University, believe that the key to implementing environmental accounting lies in highlighting the economic benefits of such legislature.

In an interview with IPS, he explained the challenge of changing the deeply-entrenched notion that protecting natural resources could undermine the nation’s per-capital GDP, a long-held belief that has put out roots during the reign of Abenomics.

“Balancing economic and environmental benefits is not easy,” he said, adding that the “fundamental clash” is caused by people wanting short-term results and refusing to exercise the patience required to “understand the limitless wealth provided by natural resources.”

Omori is currently developing robust indicators – such as calculating the economic benefits stemming from the sale of environmentally sustainable goods – that make a strong case for preserving natural capital.

An excellent example of this is the popular organic farming movement in Toyooka City in western Japan that is encouraging collaborative projects between food producers and local financial institutions.

Hirotaka Wakamori, head of the promotion section at an organisation called Eco Valley, told IPS that the number of eco businesses in Toyooka doubled to 41 in the last year, the result of a 2005 regulation passed by city councilors.

Termed the Environment Economic Strategy, the regulation allows the city to allocate up to 300 million dollars annually to support ventures between local companies and farmers.

“The project was started with the aim of protecting the environment from chemicals used in farming,” Wakamori explained. “The economic benefits for local farmers and the city financiers have convinced legislators to act faster.”

Organic farming constitutes a major breakthrough in Japan, which is second only to Israel in terms of the quantity of pesticides applied each year to agricultural land, totaling roughly 1.55 tons for every 247 acres.

Studies have shown that the manufacture and use of pesticides contribute about three percent of the 100-year global warming potential (GWP) from crops.

A movement towards organic food production, experts say, is just one of the many initiatives that require the support of strong national legislation in Japan.

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The sea level near the Federated States of Micronesia is rising by 10 millimetres per year, more than three times the global average. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, May 29 2014 (IPS)

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a western Pacific Island state located north of Papua New Guinea and east of Palau, has become a regional pioneer in drafting national legislation centred on climate change.

In December last year the government passed the Climate Change Act, making it compulsory for state sectors, including those responsible for the environment, disaster management, transportation, infrastructure, health, education and finance, to mainstream climate adaptation in all policies and action plans. The president is also required to report to congress annually on the Act’s implementation.

“The legislation is a first in a Pacific Island country and a small island state, so we broke new ground,” Lam Dang, legislative counsel to the Micronesian congress, told IPS.

"One alternative for a small island country to the deadlock in international climate change negotiation [is] to pass our own domestic legislation." -- Lam Dang, legislative counsel to the Micronesian congress
The legislation acknowledges the profound challenge that extreme climate hazards pose to human security and economic health. It reinforces, too, the rationale that action on climate change will only have an enduring effect if enforced.

When high tides flood coastal areas or a typhoon descends on the Pacific Island state, local – and often low-income – communities suffer the most. Thus their experiences and input were crucial to the development of the new policy, said Dang.

“The main concern at the community level is sea-level rise with the resulting loss of agricultural capacity and pollution of drinking water,” Dang said.

Most of Micronesia’s population of 104,000 live in close proximity to coastlines and are engaged in subsistence fishing, as well as farming of crops like taro, banana and yam. The average subsistence household income is close to 11,000 dollars per year.

But the sea level near the island state is rising by 10 millimetres per year, more than three times the global average, leading to more aggressive ‘king tides’ and coastal erosion. Flooding has damaged villages and infrastructure and contaminated arable land and fresh groundwater supplies, affecting thousands of people. As a result, food and water insecurity is a consistent challenge for communities and the government.

According to the Pacific Climate Change Science Program, Micronesia will experience increasing air and sea surface temperatures; rising sea levels; higher rainfall; and typhoons with faster-than-average wind speeds during this century.

The country is already vulnerable to natural disasters and endures an annual typhoon season from July to November.

Suzie Yoma, executive director of the Micronesia Red Cross Society in Pohnpei, recalled the devastation wrought by Typhoon Chata’an in 2002 when a landslide triggered by excessive rainfall tragically buried 47 people in Chuuk state. In 2004 Typhoon Sudal damaged 90 percent of homes and infrastructure on Yap Island and affected more than 6,000 people.

Small islands on the global stage

The groundbreaking reform was informed by FSM’s participation in international meetings of the Global Legislators Organisation, otherwise known as GLOBE International, whose objective is to support national lawmakers in developing legislation that promotes sustainable development.

At a time when the international community seems unable to reach consensus on a carbon emissions peak – which scientists have warned is essential to prevent a global temperature increase of two degrees Celsius – Small Island Developing States like Micronesia struggle to be heard at the global level, compared to industrialised super-powers, such as the United States, Russia and China.

Talks at the GLOBE summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012, followed by the conference on climate change adaptation in Beijing in 2013, were clear calls to action.

“It became clear after discussions with the large number of gathered legislators from around the world that one alternative for a small island country to the deadlock in international climate change negotiation was to pass our own domestic legislation,” Dang explained.

By demonstrating action with clear accountability at the national level, developing nations hope to galvanise movement towards a binding international climate change agreement that includes high carbon emitting industrialised nations. Currently, the Pacific Islands as a region produces some 0.006 percent of greenhouse gases, yet the people here are bearing the brunt of melting ice and rising seas.

The potential of global warming to increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters and their impact on human settlements, livelihoods and economic infrastructure prompted the government of Micronesia to integrate disaster risk management into its climate law.

Over the past 60 years natural disasters have affected 9.2 million people in the Pacific Islands region, incurring damage costs of 3.2 billion dollars.

Micronesia’s policy is aligned with a broader regional Pacific Islands strategy to incorporate climate change and disaster risk management into policies and legislation. Regional development organisations such as the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) have supported this approach since 2008.

Andrew Yatilman, director of FSM’s office of environment and emergency management, said the integrated policy would strengthen the operation of his division.

“Activities [related to disaster risk and climate change] tend to be carried out by staff separately, with climate change generally viewed more as an environmental issue,” he said. “We are now in the process of realigning our programme to make the two more complimentary.”

Benefits include reducing the duplication of tasks and more effectively utilising limited funding and resources.

President Emmanuel Mori has called the Climate Change Act “essential [for] protecting our nation and furthering the interests and wellbeing of our people.”

The country’s leadership will play a critical role in making that objective a reality.

“We can pass the best law but it is up to the executive branch to implement it,” Dang emphasised. “If there is enough political will, the legislation itself is very flexible and allows for continual input.”

Micronesia’s leaders have advocated tirelessly for international action to address climate change, especially at the United Nations.

At the 19^th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2013, Micronesia was a key supporter of a proposal to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) through the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that aims to gradually eradicate substances that contribute to ozone depletion.

HFCs, manufactured gases commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning, are believed to be highly detrimental to the atmosphere and their use is increasing by 10 to 15 percent per year.

According to GLOBE International, worldwide legislative action to date will not limit the global average temperature rise to two degrees Celsius, widely accepted by the international scientific community as the global warming safety threshold.

Micronesian leaders would like their commitment to inspire a global sense of responsibility for the future environmental fate of all nations and their peoples.

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