December, 16 2009, 11:57am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nell Greenberg
Communications Manager
(415) 659-0557
Margaret Swink
Communications Manager
(415) 659-0541
World Leaders Must Deliver Strong Goals and Money to Make REDD Happen
COPENHAGEN
Funding and targets absent as REDD text moves to ministerial level
Copenhagen - As REDD negotiating text goes to ministers this morning at the Copenhagen climate change talks, two outcomes are possible with several pivotal issues undecided. An agreement to reduce deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD) could be the strongest global measure ever enacted to protect the world's forests or a deal to incentivize their destruction.
"Time is running out for the world's forests, said Lars Lovold of Rainforest Foundation Norway. "The spotlight is now on politicians to build an alternative economic pathway to a future that includes standing natural forests and a stable climate."
Compromise text proposed by the REDD working group chair released late last evening contains some of the strongest provisions seen in the past two weeks, but four vital issues remain unresolved:
Financing: Countries must follow Norway's example and commit to adequate and sustainable funding for REDD start-up activities.
"We can't run REDD on an honor code," said Dr. Rosalind Reeve of Global Witness. "Developed countries must kick-start this process and put money on the table now."
Lack of quantitative goals: Mid- and long-term targets to reduce and halt deforestation and forest degradation must be defined.
"We're losing an acre of rainforest each second," said Alistair Graham of Humane Society International. "For countries to take REDD seriously, we need to halt emissions, retain forest carbon stocks and end gross deforestation by 2020."
Implement safeguards: Safeguards must be monitored and reported to ensure that indigenous peoples' rights and forests are protected and forest governance is transparent and effective.
"Implementation of the safeguards is absolutely crucial to ensure the long-term protection of the world's rainforests," said Virginia Young of the Wilderness Society.
Avoid leakage: Text must remove references to "subnational" strategies where countries could receive REDD funds for avoiding deforestation in one region while logging in another, failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to protect forests.
"REDD rules must not create a loophole that allows countries to be paid for reducing emissions in one place whilst destroying ecosystems somewhere else," said Susanna Tol of Wetlands International.
REDD monies are projected to help developing countries protect their remaining forests and reduce the approximately 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, forest degradation and peat soil destruction. Estimated sums required to implement REDD are EUR15-25 billion from 2010-15 to support preparatory activities, although some challenge that figure as far too low.
Targets for deforestation, which have disappeared in the text sent to ministers, aimed to cut deforestation by 50 percent by 2020 and eliminate it by 2030 in previous text seen this week.
The text for the first time provides provisions to account for the protection and restoration of all carbon stocks including peat soils which account for six percent of all global C02 emissions. It still lacks language requiring all parties, not just developing countries, to address the social and economic forces driving international demand for products which results in deforestation.
No matter what the shape of the final deal is, however, REDD must go hand in hand with deep cuts in industrial emissions if the world's tropical forests have any chance of surviving climate change.
"What good is icing without the cake?" said Bill Barclay of Rainforest Action Network. "If we are really serious about protecting forests and reducing emissions from deforestation, REDD must be part of a fair, ambitious and legally binding climate agreement."
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices staff in Tokyo, Japan, and Edmonton, Canada, plus thousands of volunteer scientists, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens around the world. We believe that a sustainable world can be created in our lifetime and that aggressive action must be taken immediately to leave a safe and secure world for our children.
LATEST NEWS
'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
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Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified an anti-semitic social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
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Elections expert John Curtice projected the Tories could ultimately lose up to 500 local council seats as vote counting continues into the weekend, following elections in which voters cast ballots for 2,661 seats.
The Conservatives have lost around half of the seats they are defending Curtice told BBC Radio.
"We are probably looking at certainly one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years," the polling expert said.
Curtice added that if the results were replicated in a general election, Labour would likely win 34% of the vote, with the Tories winning 25%—five years after the right-wing party won in a landslide in the last nationwide contest.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said the results represented a decisive call for "change" from British voters, particularly applauding the results of a special election in Blackpool South, where Labour candidate Chris Webb won nearly 11,000 votes while Conservative David Jones came in a distant second with just over 3,200.
Webb's victory represented a 26% swing in favor of Labour.
"That's the fifth swing of over 20% to the Labour party in by elections in recent months and years. It is a fantastic result, a really first class result," Starmer said. "And here in Blackpool, a message has been sent directly to the prime minister, because this was a parliamentary vote, to say we're fed up with your decline, your chaos... your division and we want change. We want to go forward with Labour."
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A similar result was recorded in York and North Yorkshire, which includes the area Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak represented as a member of Parliament.
"Yorkshire voted for Brexit in 2016," wrote William Booth, London bureau chief for The Washington Post. "But long gone are the days when many Conservatives want to stand before the voters and extol the advantages of leaving the European Union, which has been, in most sectors, a flop."
Sunak, added Booth, is "betting that immigration is still an issue with resonance and has promised to 'stop the boats,' the daily spectacle of desperate migrants risking their lives on rubber rafts trying to cross the English Channel. Sunak's government plans to fly asylum seekers arriving by boat to Rwanda. No flights have taken off yet. But the Home Office last week began a self-proclaimed 'large scale' operation to detain asylum seekers destined for removal."
The Labour Party has called Sunak's Rwanda plan a "gimmick" and said it would reverse a Tory policy blocking refugees from applying for asylum.
Average wages in the U.K. last year were "back at the level during the 2008 financial crisis, after taking account of inflation," according toThe Guardian.
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Analysts noted one setback for Labour in Oldham, where the party lost some seats in areas with large numbers of Muslim voters to independent candidates, costing it overall control of the council.
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The losses "should be a wake-up call for the Starmer leadership: Every vote must be earned," said the socialist and anti-racist group Momentum. "That means calling for an immediate arms ban to Israel, calling out Israeli war crimes, and delivering real leadership on climate."
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"Such an invasion could lead to horrific massacres and raise scenarios of a second Nakba," the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said recently. "After 200 days of horrific genocidal acts in Gaza, the real objectives of the attack are the continuation of the 76-year-long ongoing Nakba and the erasure and genocidal destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israel is laying the groundwork to fulfill its settler-colonial plan of colonizing Gaza."
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On Friday, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told reporters in Geneva that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
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